“The Band’s Visit” winning 10 Tonys is the equivalent of an art house movie collecting 10 Oscars and beating out three cinematic blockbusters.
This year’s best musical is a sultry, intimate handshake across Arab-Israeli relations, a far cry from its three competitors: “Mean Girls,” based on Tina Fey’s cult film about the high school caste system, and two shows based on family-friendly animated hits, “Frozen” and “SpongeBob SquarePants, the Musical.”
Among its many feats, “The Band’s Visit” gave Jamie deRoy, a Pittsburgh native and Carnegie Mellon University grad (Class of ’67), one of three Tony Award wins on Sunday night: She was part of the producing teams for the winner (DeRoy-Carr-Klausner) and the top revivals, “Angels in America” (CatWenJam Productions) and “Once on This Island” (42nd.club/The Yonnone Family/Island Productions). Another of her co-productions, “Edward Albee’s Three Tall Women,” earned Tonys for actresses Glenda Jackson and Laurie Metcalf.
“Mean Girls” and “SpongeBob” entered Sunday night as the nomination leaders with 12, while “The Band’s Visit” had 11 — a near sweep of its categories, which included acclaimed revival competitors as well. When another relatively small musical, “Fun Home,” was crowned in 2015, it had 12 nominations and grabbed five Tonys.
“The Band’s Visit,” with songs by David Yazbek and a book by newcomer Itamar Moses, was based on the 2007 Israeli movie about an Egyptian police band that is headed to Israel to play at the opening of an Arab arts center. Through a language mix-up, the musicians find themselves stranded in a tiny patch of Israeli desert and are taken in overnight by the town’s denizens. It was announced in the Tonys’ press room Sunday that Sasson Gabay, star of film, will succeed Tony-winning Tony Shaloub as the head of the band.
Critics have loved this musical from the beginning, finding it to be a breath of fresh air amid this season’s pop songs and huge production numbers and reveling in its story. More than one of the Tony winners Sunday expressed the peaceful encounters depicted between Arabs and Israelis as a sign of hope for our times.
Ben Brantley of The New York Times called it “one of the most ravishing musicals you will ever be seduced by,” and added, “its undeniable allure is not of the hard-charging, brightly blaring sort common to box-office extravaganzas.”
Before this year, the Tony stage had seen two years of winning musicals with songs-to-stories original content — “Hamilton” and “Dear Evan Hansen” — while “Fun Home” was a complete reinvention of a graphic novel.
If voters were casting a vote for a quieter, gentler show vs. its megamusical competition, you might say the opposite happened on the play side of the Tony Awards.
The biggest of three British imports, “Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, Parts One and Two,” won six awards, including best play. The top revival, “Angels in America” (also a two-parter), entered with 11 nominations, the most for any play ever.
“Harry Potter” has a couple of Pittsburgh connections: Benjamin Shaw, of Squirrel Hill and Pittsburgh CAPA, who is the U.S. resident director, and ensemble member Nathan Salstone, a CMU grad. In a post-show moment, he posted a photo of himself, “Just casually playing with our brilliant director John Tiffany’s Tony Award.”
More CMU at the Tonys
Ming-Na Wen, of Mt. Lebanon and CMU, is best known as the voice of Disney’s animated “Mulan” and Melinda “The Cavalry” May on ABC’s “Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.” She was chosen this year to represent the university as presenter of the Excellence in Theatre Education Award, a presentation of the Tonys and Carnegie Mellon. The honor went to Melody Herzfeld of Parkland, Fla.’s Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, who had a surprise in store for the Tonys audience and for the presenter: Her students appeared onstage to sing “Seasons of Love” from “Rent.”
Ms. Wen tweeted: “I was still backstage. The kids’ singing this song was a surprise. Not at rehearsal. We were all in tears. Powerful, hopeful & beautiful moment at the Tony Awards. Thank u again, Melody Herzfeld. U & your kids melted our hearts & gave us hope. #msdstrong #TonyAwards2018”
On the red carpet, the actress said she couldn’t comment on whether she would be in the live-action version of “Mulan,” set to star Chinese actress Yifei Liu and due out in 2020. She looked coy as she said it, though.
Two other presenters with CMU degrees, Zachary Quinto and Matt Bomer, joined “The Boys in the Band” co-star Jim Parsons to present the best play Tony. They used some of their time on stage to give a shoutout to the Jimmy Awards, the national version of the Gene Kelly and Mancini awards for high school musical theater students. The Jimmys take place in NYC on June 29, with Nasir Butler and Johanna Loughran representing the Kellys (Allegheny County) and Noah Tobery and Halle Surgil representing the Mancinis (Beaver, Butler and Lawrence counties).
Who’s onstage
• The musical “King Kong” that’s headed to Broadway in the fall has announced its ensemble, which will include Bradley Dean. Before he sets sail for Skull Island, though, Mr. Dean, a CMU graduate, will take a voyage with Pittsburgh CLO. The Broadway veteran (“Dear Evan Hansen,” “Doctor Zhivago”) returns to CLO, where he has performed in a dozen shows, for “Titanic” (June 22-July 1). He plays the designer of the doomed ocean liner, Thomas Andrews.
• Original cast members of the Tony-winning musical "Avenue Q" will take guest turns for 15 performances of the current production at off-Broadway’s New World Stages next month. Stephanie d’Abruzzo of Peters and fellow Tony nominee John Tartaglia are among the actors taking part in the 15th anniversary shows.
Sharon Eberson: seberson@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1960. Twitter: @SEberson_pg.
First Published: June 12, 2018, 4:09 p.m.
