Tonys 2014 --Hugh's Back as Host!!!

[jo]

Hugh Jackman @realhughjackman · 3h

A peak behind the #TonyAwards curtain w/ the talented @jasonasparks @annenyc @haypod22 & Leslie Flenser

http://instagram.com/p/oy4zWoihK_

Hugh Jackman @realhughjackman · 6h

REHEARSALS! Feeling very real and exciting. First time in many years the orchestra will be back on…

http://instagram.com/p/oyhLLOChIP

[birchie]

Someone uploaded the instagram rehearsal clip to YouTube:
I just can't wait!!!!
Sue

[jo]

Intersting and amusing guest blog by Jefferson Mays ( nominee for Best Actor in a Musical) --

observer.com/2014/06/guest-editor-jefferson-mays-reveals-his-survival-strategy-during-tonys-week/

Do read the entire blog...but here's an interesting excerpt --

Sunday June 8

It’s the day of the Tony Awards and my birthday. After a session in front of the mirror, practicing my “graceful loser face,” I’m off to dress rehearsal. There’s an early matinee today. Even more than usual, it’s going to be a day of quick changes: into tuxedo, a spoonful of birthday coffee ice cream from Trader Joe’s, off to the red carpet with Susan, whisked backstage to get into costume for a skit with Susan’s compatriot, Hugh Jackman. Then it’s back into tuxedo, take my seat in auditorium, backstage again to change into costume for our number, back into tuxedo, retake my seat. Fingers crossed for the musical...

So, it looks like each major performer might be joining Hugh in the Opening number? We know he is doing some tap dance from AFTER MIDNIGHT...and now this part of the skit with Jefferson Mays. I am really interested with what he will sing for Les Miserables ( nominee for Best Revival) and what he might do with NPH for Hedwig.

Jo

[jo]

Hugh JackmanVerified account
‏@realhughjackman A hint .... #tonyawards

http://instagram.com/p/o0orftihIX

Not getting the hint...yet

All I know is that Bobby Van's is close to RCMH!


Jo

[ruby]

Jun 4, 2014 8:29:54 GMT -5 jo said:

Hugh JackmanVerified account
‏@realhughjackman A hint .... #tonyawards

http://instagram.com/p/o0orftihIX

Not getting the hint...yet

All I know is that Bobby Van's is close to RCMH!


Jo

Really? He's totally spelled it out now.

[mamaleh]

Jo, have you ever seen the movie musical SMALL TOWN GIRL? Do so. It'll put a spring in your step. And a lightbulb will go on in your head.

Ellen

[jo]

LOL - so, was it all the "hopping" steps he has been showing in his instagram

Small Town Girl is a 1953 musical film directed by László Kardos and starring Jane Powell, Farley Granger, and Ann Miller. Busby Berkeley choreographed several dance numbers. Bobby Van performed the memorable "Street Dance", in which he hopped all around town...

Jo

[mamaleh]

That's the way it seems. Have a look. www.youtube.com/watch?v=mtlHjso3LHA


Ellen

[jo]

smiley-signs101 Ellen!

It looks like that might be Hugh's entrance number ?? Amazing how Hugh ( who is a heavyweight compared to the light and lean Bobby) can perform such a strenuous but should-be graceful number!

I am hopping with glee right now - because Rafa Nadal just swept away his Q-Finals match at Roland Garros in Paris smiley-happy036

[mamaleh]

Besides "light and lean," Bobby Van was 24 when he filmed that! I don't think any other movie star of 45 could do that.

Ellen

[jo]

I actually meant to write "lithe and lean" - my fingers do not take orders, it seems

Bobby might be light in weight and young in years when he performed that number -- but did he have the extreme athleticism ( for an actor!) of Hugh Jackman ( even if he is middle-aged)? Superheroes can do most anything

Jo

[jo]

smiley-cool13 He can't seem to stop now!!

Hugh Jackman @realhughjackman · 35m

BOUNCE #TONYAWARDS vimeo.com/97376948

Just an ad for the coming awards show --- or is it part of the show


Although the Bobby Van number from the movie musical was actually called "TAKE ME TO BROADWAY"! I wonder how they will call up memories of that long-ago movie ( and why it is related to Broadway) and let the audiences ( esp the TV audiences) realize that the show is a joyous path to the Great White Way?

Someone tweeted wondering why Hugh was continously bouncing like a little boy -LOL!


Jo

[jo]

Paramount Hotel ‏@nycparamount · 2h
Thanks for visiting us! Can't wait for Sunday @thetonyawards “@realhughjackman: BOUNCE #TONYAWARDS vimeo.com/97376948 ”

Isn't Paramount Hotel across the Imperial stagedoor? I remember getting together with some friends having coffee or something while waiting for the show (TBFO) to start or was it to wait for Hugh to arrive before the show

Jo

[jo]

All suited up for the David Letterman Show -- he told The Grill Team that he was joining David to promote the TONYs!

www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-2649226/Suit-sir-Hugh-Jackman-dazzles-smart-ensemble-mingles-fans-spot-Late-Show-David-Letterman.html










Please check the link for other photos.


Jo

[jo]

Hugh Jackman @realhughjackman · 20m

Huge THANKS to @joshuahorowitz !! You and your team are awesome. #BOUNCE #tonyawards

Josh Horowitz ‏@joshuahorowitz · 12h
Keep bouncing @realhughjackman! vimeo.com/97376948 #Tonys

What happened to the autograph, Josh

[jo]

Hugh JackmanVerified account
‏@realhughjackman Getting closer! Tux fitting at RCMH for #tonyawards. #youknowwhoyouare asbingemann

http://instagram.com/p/o4RCjHChLm

[mamaleh]

Hugh and Seth Rudetsky, inside Radio City during a Tonys rehearsal, were on Entertainment Tonight. At the end of the interview, they both bounced in place.

Ellen

[jo]

Hmm...hey, it might be a craze the morning after ( after watching the TONYs the night after) - LOL! Everyone jumping while getting breakfast ...or greeting people in the office ...Crazy!!!

But...I wonder --

Would he be doing a take on this song and dance number called TAKE ME TO BROADWAY, from SMALL TOWN GIRL, for his Opening Number!

www.youtube.com/watch?v=fZet1qbWn-s

I know that would have to be done live onstage ( much more difficult compared to filming the scene) -- but wouldn't it be fantastic? The choreography was by Busby Berkeley ( didn't Peter Allen mention him in TBFO?)... Maybe this is where all the tap dancing he showed in his instagram images will be a part of?



Just guessing, of course


Jo

[jo]

NCIS LA ‏@ncisla_CBS · 1h
.@barrettfoa catches up w/ #TonyAwards host @realhughjackman at day1 of #TonyAwards rehearsals bit.ly/1rPA6zu pic.twitter.com/SpnTANjXEw

[jo]

You can glimpse the set for the TONYs in the background in that photo of Hugh with Barrett Foa, who will play social media reporter for CBS for the event.

In another photo, Barrett Foa is in the foreground for this stage set photo --



I had seen another and clearer photo of the set ( just the set, no personality included) -- but can't locate it anymore.

[jo]

Video interview with ACCESS HOLLYWOOD --

www.accesshollywood.com/hugh-jackman-gears-up-to-host-the-tonys_article_95133

He hasn't seen LES MIS - not much time left till the TONYs


Also --

“I’m so excited about ‘The River.’ It’s a beautiful play,” Hugh said. “It’s very kind of deep and mysterious. It’s very intimate, about a man and a woman and a moonless night up in a cabin on the cliff side and it all takes place in one night. It’s about love, loneliness. It’s about everything including fishing.”

Jo

[jo]

He's been treating promotion for the TONY awards show as if it were a huge media tour for a blockbuster summer movie smiley-excited001

Another meeting with the media --

Julie James
‏@julie_james Just chatting with @realhughjackman @radiocity about hosting the #TonyAwards. He's been practicing since Feb! pic.twitter.com/CE96NeySo7

Another one - probably a major interview ?

CBS This Morning ‏@cbsthismorning · 2h
.@gayleking's interview with @realhughjackman, tomorrow on @cbsthismorning.

And this time, with NY1 --

www.ny1.com/content/lifestyles/on_stage/209934/hugh-jackman-says-nothing-more-fun-than-hosting-tony-awards?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

Again, video clip on an exclusive basis

Forty-four productions opened this season on Broadway, and included in that mix 16 musicals, so I had to ask Hugh, as a "song and dance" man, any favorites?

His response, well he played it safe.

“I can't do that man, I'm not doing that man. I do have them, you know I do, but I'm going to be backstage with all those people, so unfortunately too many people see your show for me to comment,” he said.

Frank DiLella: I hear you're going to be part of this big tap dance opening number?
Jackman: Wow man you're good. I was about to say I can't reveal anything, but yes there's some tapping, but I'm not front and center of that piece, rightly so, because there are some tappers on that stage who are truly out of this world.

Regardless whether you're watching in the Hall or at home in your living room, Jackman says you're in for a treat.

There's 10 performances and each show gets to put their best foot forward, they're doing one number, so you know you're going to see the best of the best.

The Tony Awards will be handed out on Sunday night and be sure to tune into NY1's Red Carpet Special starting at 6 p.m.

A photo with Frank DiLella --

[jo]

Even VOGUE.COM is helping publicize the TONYs, by drawing attention to featured coverage of Hugh Jackman on Vogue --

Vogue Magazine ‏@voguemagazine · 3m
With @realhughjackman hosting the @thetonyawards Sunday, take a look at his stage career in the pages of Vogue: vogue.cm/SdciFb

www.vogue.com/culture/article/from-the-archives-hugh-jackman-in-vogue/#1


From The Boy from Oz --







From his performance at the Met Ball of the Costume Institute of the Metropolitan Museum --





From the cover story of the movie AUSTRALIA --





From rehearsals of THE MUSICAL IS BACK, for the 2009 Oscars --





From A STEADY RAIN --






Not from the same archival photo gallery, but also featured on Vogue, during the time of BACK ON BROADWAY --



And here's the giddy review from VOGUE's Adam Green re BACK ON BROADWAY

www.vogue.com/culture/article/theater-hugh-jackman-is-blissfully-back-on-broadway/#1

Theater

Hugh Jackman is (Blissfully) Back on Broadway

by Adam Green


Looking for a jolt of the giddy intoxication that comes with falling head over heels for someone and discovering that the object of your affection is crazy about you, too? Get to the Broadhurst Theatre, where Hugh Jackman opened last night in his deliriously buoyant new (almost) one-man show, Hugh Jackman: Back on Broadway, and get swept up in the love affair between a great performer and his audience. The merest nod, wink, or smile from the preposterously handsome Australian star (never mind a swivel-hipped rendition of “Fever”) is enough to elicit squeals of delight and send the crowd—woman, man, straight, gay, young, old—into a kind of collective frenzy. An unwitting civilian who happened to wander in halfway through the show would probably take one look around and mutter, “Get a room.”

Jackman, of course, is a big-screen action hero and leading man, but as he confesses at one point during the evening, “I kind of like being onstage singing and dancing”— he holds up his thumb and forefinger, squinting as he pinches them together—“a little bit more.” No kidding. Anyone who saw his breakthrough performance in the 1998 Royal National Theatre revival of Oklahoma! or his 2003 Tony-winning turn as the Australian singer-songwriter Peter Allen in The Boy From Oz (and if you didn’t, he reprises highlights from them here) knows that Jackman was born for the musical stage. A once-in-a-lifetime combination of talent, looks, charm, and charisma, he radiates a joy in what he’s doing that moves through the theater like the spirit of God on the face of the waters. In short, the guy’s the greatest thing since sliced bread.

Jackman opens the show by making his entrance from the wings in a black suit and an open-collared shirt, giving a goose-bump-making account of “Oh, What a Beautiful Mornin’ ” with aw-shucks ease. And he closes with a double encore of “Mack the Knife” and “Once, Before I Leave You.” In between, backed by a swinging eighteen-piece orchestra and six thoroughbred chorus girls, he spends two hours or so crooning, tapping, kicking, strutting, and mamboing through a personal tour of the 20th-century American (and Australian) songbook, with stops along the way for self-deprecating anecdotes, topical wisecracks, and audience banter (Ralph Lauren and Regis Philbin took some friendly fire the night I was there).

Highlights include a tribute to the golden age of movie musicals, a stirring rendition of “Soliloquy” from Carousel, and a gleefully athletic song-and-dance that covers the waterfront from “I Won’t Dance” and “Gotta Dance” to “I Feel Pretty” and “(Shake, Shake, Shake) Shake Your Booty.” When he comes out for act two—sheathed in gold lamé as Peter Allen—and launches into a Boy From Oz medley, careening from the super-campy (“I Go to Rio”) to the deeply moving (“Quiet Please, There’s a Lady on the Stage”), it almost causes a riot.

Sure, the evening, directed and choreographed with verve and precision by Warren Carlyle, is more of a deluxe nightclub act than a unified piece of theater, and it certainly doesn’t stint on the schmaltz. But it’s a perfectly crafted vehicle for Jackman’s colossal talent and his unmatched ability to give everything he’s got, generating the kind of pure showbiz electricity that hasn’t been felt, one imagines, since the days of Judy at the Palace or Sinatra at the Sands, while making it look effortless.

And then there’s that thing he’s got going on with the audience. At one point during the night I saw the show, a woman in the mezzanine shouted, “I love you!” Jackman stopped, looked in her direction, flashed her a grin, and said, “I love you too. I just think we should see other people.” Do yourself a favor: Whatever it takes to get a ticket before the show ends its limited engagement on January 1, make sure that you’re one of those people.

Well, he is back on Broadway -- even if for ONE NIGHT ONLY

[jo]

Broadwayworld notes the many similarities or memories-resonating events between the TONYs of 2004 ( and the season it was celebrating) and the coming celebration of the current season on TONYs night for 2014 --

www.broadwayworld.com/article/FLASH-FRIDAY-2004-2014-Tony-Awards-Parallels-Aplenty-With-Hugh-Idina-NPH-Audra-Beyond-20140606#

[jo]

Talking to David Letterman --


www.youtube.com/watch?v=EuqIuXmwfoI&feature=youtube_gdata



In one part he talks about fishing and the fishing trip he took with Oscar ( turns out he also wanted it as research for his next play THE RIVER )