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The women of the 2012 Tony Awards

The Tony Awards, honoring the best of the year in theater, have long been perceived as a gay man’s party. Well, I want to call shenanigans and invite us all to the party, because it is a damn fine party, and we all deserve to be there. Aside from the fact that a number of the lesbians I know refer to themselves as gay men on the inside anyway (my girlfriend, for one), the number of women now involved in every aspect of theater is incredibly important and needs to be celebrated.

Plus, it just wouldn’t be fair to anyone to not get equal opportunity to squee over the perfection of Neil Patrick Harris. Seriously, you are a perfect human being.

I also love the Tonys if just for the fact that for a few hours once a year, I can delude myself into believing that I am: 1) much classier than I actually am, and 2) much richer than I ever will be, and that with these things combined I will of course be able to go see all of these plays and musicals this year! No really, this year I will! See you soon, Broadway!

(It is such a delightful delusion!)

While the ladies are still under-represented at the Tonys – no women were nominated for any writing awards, as just one example – here’s my list of the best female-centric highlights of the evening, presented for the joy of reliving the night as well as for guidance in helping you plan the shows to see on your own theatrical trip to New York this year. (I will see you there! Probably! Maybe!)

1. The show started off with Judith Light winning Best Featured Play Actress for Other Desert Cities, a new play about how a woman’s memoir about her family dredges up tortured truths and pain that the family has a hard time confronting. (Guess who else is in this play? Stockard Channing! Yeah, I didn’t know she was still doing anything, either!) Judith Light, you are MY light! If you’re wondering where you’ve seen her before, let me remind you of a little show called Who’s the Boss, or more recently, Ugly Betty. In addition to her long life on TV, she is an unrelenting champion of LGBT rights, sitting on the board of the Matthew Shepard Foundation and the Point Foundation. She also founded the Give a Damn campaign with Cyndi Lauper in 2010, which urged more straight people to stand up for gay rights. Her Tony acceptance speech was passionate and classy and lovely and a great kick-off to the evening.

2. Oh, Bernadette Peters . You are divine. All you did was introduce a musical number, yet the diction, timing, and dramatic delivery of every word you spoke made me feel like I had somehow cheated my way to a free ticket and actually was at the theater, seeing the best 90-second show ever! In addition to your wonderful musical number introduction, I hear you also received a prestigious award called the Isabelle Stevenson Award for your contribution to humanitarian causes throughout your theater career. Which is funny, because I didn’t actually get to see that on my TV. Even though this sort of seems like a big deal. And I got to see Hugh Jackman receive a strikingly similar award. Don’t get me wrong, Bernadette, I love Hugh Jackman – who doesn’t? People who also hate puppies, probably – and the fact that his wife surprised him with presenting the award to him was absolutely heartwarming and wonderful. Also, her dress was outstanding. But Bernadette, I might dare say that you are the most distinguished, most recognizable Broadway actress of our time. You got an important award, too. How come I didn’t get to hear your speech?

Hmm. Maybe you can ask the people who are in charge of these things, and tell them that I am calling shenanigans on them. Regardless, you have my sincerest congratulations.

3. OK, now that I got a little sarcastic feminist bit out – I know, us bitter feminists are so pesky – here are the good bits! There were three female directors nominated, two in the musical category and one in the play category. None of them won, but still, directors are big deals! They’re positions of great power, positions that require a vision and the ability to tell everyone how to carry out that vision. A good director commands respect. They’re positions we’re really used to guys doing, and even more used to guys being celebrated for. The Tonys are at least a little better than the Oscars in this regard. In fact, quite a few ladies have received the Tony for Best Director for a Play or Musical in the past: Julie Taymor in 1998 (The Lion King), Susan Stroman in 2001 (The Producers), Mary Zimmerman in 2002 (Metamorphoses), Anna Shapiro in 2008 (August: Osage County), and last year Marianne Elliott shared the award with Tom Ellis (War Horse).

The count for the Oscars: Kathryn Bigelow in 2009 for The Hurt Locker. Aaand that’s it. So. Someone make a Socially Awkward Penguin meme about this – it could go something like, GAVE AWARD 83 TIMES. ONLY GAVE IT TO A LADY ONCE – and send it to the Academy for me. It’d make me feel better.

Other good Tony news for the ladies: Best Costume Design for a Play went to Paloma Young for Peter and the Starcatchers; all the other nominees were men. Best Scenic Design, also for Peter, went to Donyale Werle, again the only female nominee in her category. Natasha Katz won for Best Lighting Design in a Musical for Once. I point this out not to say, “Suck it, men who were also nominated for these awards!” but as a reminder that that thing I said at the beginning about women being involved in every aspect of theater? Yeah, see, I was right about that.

4. Most people associate Angela Lansbury with Murder, She Wrote, but I always think of her as the overwhelmingly comforting voice of Mrs. Potts in Beauty and the Beast. And just please, please, please Angela Lansbury, please never die, because I’m worried if you do I will want to burst into tears anytime I see a teapot, so you just can’t, OK? You just can’t.

Photo by Theo Wargo/Getty Images

5. For all you lesbians who are actually gay men like my girlfriend, I must say that even though End of the Rainbow didn’t win any major awards, it’s about Judy Garland trying to make a comeback near the end of her tragic life and Tracie Bennett sounds like she’s absolutely magnificent in it. Did you know that Judy would have been 90 today and that next week in New York there will be an event to benefit homeless LGBT youth called “A Night of a Thousand Judys“? It’s all so perfect I could just burst?

(Update from my gay-man-lesbian girlfriend during one of the musical numbers: “I love it when people sing different parts at the same time! I love it more than anything, to be honest!”)  

6. Once won perhaps the biggest award – at least to us uncultured people – of the evening: Best Musical. (I know several actor-y folk who tell me that musicals aren’t “real theater.” Sorry, actor-y people! I’m sure you probably know what you’re talking about, but my melodramatic soul can’t say no to stories told through song!) Based on the 2006 movie, which is in turn based on music written by Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova – they have since done several concert tours under the band name The Swell Season – it’s a quiet yet surprisingly moving tale of two musicians in Ireland who are each struggling a bit in their lives. And even if it’s just for a short time, the find solace in each other and the music they create.

While I already had an inkling Once would win big, I knew for sure when they performed their musical number. It was fantastic. I had chills. And while Steve Kazee sang the whole time (he went on to win for Best Actor in a Musical), I felt like it was Cristin Milioti who really contributed to the magic of the scene. She wandered slowly around as Kazee sang from the stage, and as other random musicians popped up all around her with their violins and acoustic guitars, she stared silently at each one, eyes wide with a look of pure, grateful awe, a smile made of solid joy.

After this performance, the camera quickly panned to Glen and Marketa seated in the audience, who shared an overwhelmed smile with one another, and my heart wanted to run around the room yelling “EEEE!” while shaking everyone it met by the shoulders. (My heart can get a little aggressive sometimes.)

Also, Kazee talked about his mom who recently died of cancer in his acceptance speech and cried a lot and it was too much. And also, Cristin Milioti, your dress and your earrings and your adorable little face: yes, yes, yes. 7. One of the plays I was most intrigued by throughout the evening was Venus In Fur, for which Nina Arianda won Best Actress in a Play for her role of Vanda. It was described by a presenter as a play that challenged the viewer’s ideas of sex, gender, and power, or something similar to that which alerted the “Hey Jill, you will like this!” trigger in my brain. Arianda was so excited in her acceptance speech, and also described her character as one of the best female roles she had ever heard of. So, you know, if you’re interested in a sexy play with a strong and complex lady in it, seems like Venus in Fur is the one for you. 8. Candice Bergen ! There are so many patterns going on on your blazer! Also, who wears blazers to award shows? Lesbians, that’s who. (I know, I know, you’re married to a dude.) Also, you are still looking quite lovely, especially considering you survived a stroke a few years ago, and especially considering I already thought of you as an older lady when you were Murphy Brown. You know what was the best? Murphy Brown, am I right?! 9. Finally, there was a lady of color up on the stage when the gorgeous Audra McDonald won Best Actress in a Musical for Porgy and Bess. You TV watching folk might recognize her from her role on Private Practice, but McDonald has also been super successful in theater. This award in fact tied her with Angela Lansbury (Mrs. Potts!) and Julie Harris for most Tony Awards ever for an actress. (They all have five now. Not shabby.) Oh, and she’s also recorded four albums with her pretty pretty voice and occasionally sings opera. No big whoop. 10. While she didn’t win, Cynthia Nixon was nominated for her harrowing and brilliant performance in Wit, a devastating-yet-also-funny play that follows a poet and professor as she goes through cancer treatment. In addition to being recognized for this incredible role, she got to walk the red carpet with her new official wifey, Christine Marinoni, and how awesome is that! And Marinoni wore a tux with a bowtie! Gah! You ladies are so adorable and wonderful. And speaking of ladies on the red carpet, Jessica Chastain arrived not only wearing a nude dress that proclaimed SPARKLES AND BOOBS!, but she also looked pretty chummy with Jess Weixler throughout the evening. Just sayin’. And to end, while not exclusively related to the ladies but to all of humanity, my personal favorite acceptance speech of the night was from Daryl Roth, producer of Clybourne Park, Best Play winner. He said:

There are those rare people who can look at the world and see things the rest of us don’t see until they show us. These are the writers. There are the special few who can take that vision and turn it back into a world. These are the directors, the designers. There are fearless beings who can live in that world and show us who we are. These are our actors. There are dedicated people who know why that world matters so very much – crew, theater staff, producers, investors, managers, marketers. And then there are the people who step forward and say, show me this world. Open me. Change me. These are our audiences. And when all of these people come together and say “Yes,” there is theater.
I would venture to say that’s not just an eloquent description of theater, but of all performance art in general. It reminds us just how special it is, how meaningful it is, when so many people work together to make one great thing happen. And when these great things happen, it is spectacular, and as Neil Patrick Harris said, “If life were more like theater, life wouldn’t suck so much.”

So let’s keep saying “Yes!” Let’s keep making life not suck so much. I’ll be waiting in line at the TKTS booth in Times Square in my dreams. See you all there.

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