- Network: CBS , Tony Awards
- Series Premiere Date: Apr 1, 1956
Critic Reviews
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All in all, this was a mostly satisfying, if not completely exhilarating year for the Tonys.
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The host started strong and had one sharp musical interlude mid-show, but elsewhere delivered strained comedy bits that felt familiar, safe and thematically generic. ... Thankfully, the Tonys is less about the host than the award recipients and the shows they represent, and on that front, the ceremony delivered some stirring speeches, a couple of stellar performance interludes in an otherwise mixed bag, and some welcome, and long overdue, respect for playwrights.
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A practiced vaudevillian, [host James Corden] seemed to pitch every comic bit from a defensive crouch, as if convinced that anyone watching the Tonys was doing it by accident or was hoping to see Neil Patrick Harris instead. ... This year, the playwrights themselves gave descriptions of their plays. It may have felt like listening to book reports, but it gave us the chance to see Heidi Schreck, Tarell Alvin McCraney, and, in monster-drag regalia, Taylor Mac.
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More Corden would have given the show more life, and a more unfettered Corden might have been able to cut through some of the gauze of earnest sanctimony that enveloped the ceremony to an even greater extent than in recent years. ... In its main job of drawing paying customers to the plays, the night was a mixed bag. The biggest musicals fared the worst in the production numbers.
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The musical numbers, always the highlight of the Tonys and designed to sell as many tickets as possible, were a bust on the telecast. ... As for Corden, this was not his finest hour. The opening number, written especially for the telecast, was a dud, and he seemed a bit tired throughout the evening.
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[Host James Corden's] opening number, which began with the “Late Late Show” host sitting on a couch, was premised on the idea that there is simply too much good TV on nowadays, before making a muddled argument that theater is better than TV because it is actually live. ... Corden just kept coming around, with the notion of the excitement around live theater de-emphasized each time by the staleness of his material. ... Little on the broadcast carried the charge of a performance coherent from beginning to end, one designed to tell a story rather than simply cow the audience into submission.