Wednesday, June 10, 2009

Tony, Tony, Tony 2

The "secret" behind NPH's closing number of the Tony's is revealed by NYTimes.com, along with extra, discarded lyrics!

As anyone might have guessed, the writing team behind the number was Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman - who wrote Hairspray!, Prop 8: The Musical, and the up-coming musical version of Catch Me If You Can!

When approached by Harris about writing the closing number, the pair was apprehensive
“'We did our best to tell him that once they announce best musical, no one’s going to want to stick around for a closing number,' Mr. Wittman said in an interview. 'But he had a youthful cockiness that was endearing. He said, ‘No I want to do it.’

Mr. Shaiman and Mr. Wittman spent the next few days composing verses that accounted for any number of possible Tony outcomes: What if Jane Fonda wins for “33 Variations”? What if “Billy Elliot” loses?"

See the truly entertaining number here.

1 comment:

Kim said...

Thanks for this! I wonder if he memorized different versions or if they teleprompted him...

Either way, it was awesome.