Tony Awards 2007: Bad Hair, Unwelcome Idols, and a Very Crowded Stage

What the theater bloggers (and chatters) are all in a dither about this week:

The ever-opinionated posters on Talkin’ Broadway’s All That Chat wasted no time griping about the Tonys last night. Among the chatters’ biggest complaints? Fantasia, Fantasia, Fantasia. In response to her out-of-character, “bare� stage performance, poster AnyaS wrote, “Maybe Simon, Paula, and Randy are right to act as if Broadway is easy and anyone who tries it will be easily embraced.� Or, as The Playgoer — who also live-blogged — wisely asked, “So wait: Legally Blonde doesn’t get a spot, but the year-old Color Purple does, thanks to American Idol–crowned Fantasia?�

But the biggest Tony debate in the blogosphere this morning surrounded the visibly upset look on Company star Raúl Esparza’s face when the media darling lost to David Hyde Pierce, of Curtains fame. Some sympathized: “Why shouldn’t he be disappointed?� asked poster BobG. “Raul, if thast’s [sic] what you were feeling, feel it. God knows, I was gobsmacked when I heard it wasn’t you!� But others called him out for his bad attitude, including blunt poster chrisacts: “The problem is that he can sometimes be kind of an arrogant jerk and it’s hard to warm up to him.�

Other posters were shocked to discover the number of producers it took to produce the Tony-sweeping Spring Awakening. “And the whole Audience goes onstage!� proclaimed one post. But according to poster meeditoria, it was the cast of Spring Awakening’s hairstyles — “brought to you by the folks who did Tom Hulce’s wigs in Amadeus� — that really stole the show. —Miriam Datskovsky