The curtain rises on an unpredictable Tonys

By Jacqueline Cutler © Zap2it

The only sure shot going into the 67th Annual Tony Awards on Sunday, June 9, is Neil Patrick Harris hosting for a fourth time.

“He understands Broadway and television, and Broadway and television come together one time a year,” says Glenn Weiss, director and co-producer of the Tonys.

Though Harris was suspended upside down when “SpiderMan: Turn Off the Dark” was a contender in 2012, he’s not going to pull similar stunts.

“I never find it a successful move when an awards show host dons different ridiculous outfits,” Harris says. “As a viewer, I never feel it is funny, and I just think it is difficult for the host. It is a lot of work for not a lot of accolades. You end up with silly pictures of yourself in the trades.”

“The job of hosting an awards show like the Tonys is to be the ringmaster and barker,” Harris says. “It is different from other shows because it is so performance-filled. You have to spend your time honoring the season and honoring the shows.”

CBS’ live three-hour telecast returns to New York’s Radio City Music Hall to honor a season that has been incredibly diverse. That included one-person shows on a super agent (“I’ll Eat You Later”), Macbeth and Mary, the mother of Jesus (“The Testament of Mary”) — though Bette Midler, Alan Cumming and Fiona Shaw, who played them, respectively, were not nominated.

This season has Tom Hanks nominated for best actor in his Broadway debut in “Lucky Guy.” Nora Ephron’s final play, about the late newspaperman Mike McAlary, is up for six Tonys.

“There are a lot of things on Broadway this year that don’t fit the mold of the Broadway musical,” says co-producer Ricky Kirshner. “There are a lot of in- teresting races. The best musical races are very close, and a lot of the acting categories are very close.”

It was a surprising season with so many musicals geared toward children, and nominated shows include “A Christmas Story, The Musical,” “Matilda The Musical” and “Rodgers & Hammerstein’s Cinderella.”

Among the brilliant performances nominated are Nathan Lane’s as a conservative gay vaudevillian in “The Nance” and Tracy Letts’ as the drunken professor in “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?”

“I am kind of blown away by the diversity of the shows,” Harris says. “There are lots of children, lots of animals, lots of people in nothing and lots of men in dresses.”

Young actors were remarkable this season, notably in “Matilda The Musical,” in which the four girls who share the title role will be honored with a special Tony. Roald Dahl’s timeless story of a brilliant girl raised by imbeciles has music and lyrics by Tim Minchin.

It also has a hilarious performance by Bertie Carvel, a large man parading around as the nastiest headmistress. He’s up for leading actor in a musical, against, among others, the terrific stars of “Kinky Boots.” Billy Porter plays a drag queen, and Stark Sands is the reluctant heir to a shoe factory.

“Kinky Boots” leads with 13 nominations, including one for Cyndi Lauper’s music and lyrics. She’s in the same category as Trey Anastasio of Phish, who cowrote the music for “Hands on a Hardbody.”

That musical, about Texans competing to win a truck by keeping their hands on it, didn’t last long, but two other plays set in Texas are going strong.

Holland Taylor, of “Two and a Half Men” fame, wrote and is spellbinding as “Ann,” the late Texas Gov. Ann Richards.

Taylor’s in terrific company for leading actress in a play, which includes Cicely Tyson in “The Trip to Bountiful.” Set in Houston and a tiny, moribund town, it stars Tyson as a woman intent on seeing her childhood home one last time.

She shares the stage with Condola Rashad, nominated for the second time in a featured role. Also up for her second Tony is Patina Miller, having a ridiculous amount of fun as the ringmaster in the revival of “Pippin.”

It’s in the middle of “Pippin,” which garnered 10 nominations, that the season has its one genuine showstopper, courtesy of Andrea Martin. She proves that 66 is the perfect age to rock a bustier leotard and fishnets while swinging from a trampoline with a well-muscled young man.

Though “Pippin” has sexy costumes, those to beat are the confections in “Cinderella.” William Ivey Long, who has won five Tonys and serves as chair of the American Theatre Wing, designed the gowns that seem to magically pop up out of rags. He’s creating one just for the Tonys, but that’s all Long would allow, for like the producers, he’s intent on not spoiling surprises.

“Keep your eyes open for very familiar characters appearing through the night,” Weiss says. “After the show, that will make a lot of sense.”

As the first working artist since Helen Hayes to serve as chair, Long explains that the Tonys started off much smaller; originally male winners were given money clips, and women were given compacts.

What separates the Tonys from other awards shows, Weiss says, are the acceptance speeches.

“The sense of the community of the people on Broadway,” he says, “that translates and helps make it a unique feature of this television show.”

ACROSS

1. __ Hanna; role on “NCIS: Los Angeles”

4. Role on “I Love Lucy”

8. Delaney or Kardashian

11. Historical period

12. Prefix for dynamics or space

13. “One Day __ __ Time”

14. “CSI: Miami” actress (2)

17. “__ Another Day”; James Bond movie

18. Miss Piggy’s word in referring to herself

19. “The Sun __ Rises”; 1957 Tyrone Power film

21. Late night personality

24. Ellen Burstyn’s state of birth: abbr.

25. Role on “Home Improvement”

26. Word in the title of Drew Carey’s show

27. “Lie to __”

28. Rue, for one

30. “Rise of the Planet of the __”; 2011 thriller

32. “__ Life to Live”

34. Lofty poem

2. Word with chair or rest

3. “Pretty __ All in a Row”; Rock Hudson movie

4. Ms. Dunaway

5. Pelosi’s title: abbr.

6. Goof

7. “Indiana Jones and the Temple of __”; 1984 film

8. Holmes or Couric

9. Suffix for favor or meteor

10. Spoil

15. “__ __ tigers and bears! Oh, my!”

16. Setting for “Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman”

19. Actress Suzy

20. One of Bart’s sisters

22. “__ That Tune”

23. Vaudevillian Olsen and others

29. Actor McDowall

31. Lowly laborers

33. Old Western actor Jack

34. “Coffee, Tea __ __?”

35. “The __ Squad” (1968-73)

36. Actress/director Lupino

37. Letter from Greece

38. Singer Jon __ Jovi

39. Actress Dennings

40. “I __”; Culp/Cosby series

2:30 a.m. (ESPN) 2013 NBA