“Spider-Man’s” high-flying star, Reeve Carney, and Jennifer Damiano, playing his love interest, were featured in “If the World Should End” from the show, which had been under the direction of Julie Taymor until her dismissal in March. Other shows not currently in contention for best musical, such as last year’s Tony winner, “Memphis,” and this season’s “Priscilla, Queen of the Desert,” also secured coveted air time.
The host of this year’s Tonys, Neil Patrick Harris, reprised the ceremonial duties he performed two years ago, when the proceedings were broadcast from Radio City Music Hall. (Harris, who has occasionally appeared on Broadway, stars in “How I Met Your Mother,” presented, like the Tonys, on CBS.) In fact, with Harris at the helm, the show was one of the smartest Tony telecasts in memory, moving securely from entertaining if often promotional musical numbers to the host’s winking comic interludes; a competitive bit between Harris and one-time emcee Hugh Jackman was a highlight.
Among those making appearances were such previous Tony winners as Catherine Zeta-Jones, David Hyde-Pierce and Angela Lansbury, and such would-be nominees as Daniel Radcliffe, passed over this year for his performance in “How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying.” (His “How to Succeed” co-star, John Larroquette, won for featured actor in a musical.)
Harris’s opening number set the tone for the evening. Describing Broadway as “a barely affordable, unlip-synced version of ‘Glee,’ ” he launched into an elegantly wit-filled number whose theme was “Broadway is not just for gays anymore.” “People from red states and people from blue,” the suave Harris sang tongue-in-cheekly to an audience including Al Pacino, Vanessa Redgrave and James Earl Jones, “a big Broadway rainbow is waiting for you.”
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