One Day More
Tomorrow is Tony Day. It’s one of things I look forward to all year. I count down. I watch the clock. I make myself a touch crazy about it.
The thing I love about the Tonys, though, is that while it certainly creates a little extra crazy it also heals me a little bit. We all have problems day to day and sometimes they can seem insurmountable. But one night a year, for about four hours, I block out everything else and I’m completely immersed in all things Broadway. The good, the bad, and the ugly. (Yeah, I’m talking to you, Turn Off the Dark.)
In that time I see the fruition of childhood dreams as people perform on stage at the highest possible level of their craft. They thank God and their partners and their children and their parents and they do it with an astounding stage presence. It may be the fact that they have so much more practice with live audiences, but the acceptance speeches are so much more powerful and moving for me than any other award show all year.
You’ll see the true legends of the stage and the new movers and shakers who are redefining what it means to be a Broadway star. Sutton Foster and Angela Lansbury and Raul Esparza and Brian Stokes Mitchell all converge in one place. It’s as though it’s a unique universe of theater awesome.
But my favorite part? The reason I can sleep the night before and the reason I cry every year? The things that make me shiver and catch my breath in my throat? The numbers.
I live in Colorado, which is a wonderful place with an emerging theater community and traveling shows. However, Colorado is not New York City. Out of the year, 364 days I am perfectly content to be here with my mountains out the window, but one day a year I just want to lose myself in the music of that world. I can see many shows here, but there are many more than will never cross into my yard. On Tony Day, I can get a little taste of them and feel like I’m part of that. I can be in the audience and feel the power of the performance.
I know that sometimes things don’t translate as well from the stage to the screen. Several people mocked last year’s Tony winner Catherine Zeta Jones for her intense version of Send in the Clowns. Sure, if you watch it on tv it seems a little much. If you take a moment and put yourself in a theater, it’s perfect. And for this one night, I get to be in that theater.
I know I get crazy. I know I get weird about noise and food and whatnot, but try to put up with me until the broadcast is over. Then we’ll get back to your regularly scheduled life.