And the Tony goes to...blah.

So the Tony Awards were tonight. I only got to see half of them, and the few that I did see, I wasn't very impressed with. There were a couple of interesting plays, but the plays on Broadway are usually more interesting than the musicals.

Watching the Tony's tonight made me realize one thing: I should write a musical. Or at least, I should try.

The Best Original Musical, Avenue Q, also won a Tony for Best Original Music and Lyrics. As the two winners for the lyrics and music, Robert Lopez and Jeff Marx, accepted their awards, they both admitted to being out of work when they started their creation three years ago. If they can get to Broadway in three years, the least I can do is try to write a musical, right?

What makes Avenue Q different isn't the view of the real world in the eyes of a new college grad, it's the puppets. It's a place where puppets and humans live side by side, like Sesame Street, only these puppets swear and address issues like drugs and internet porn. Gary Coleman (not the real Gary Coleman, some lady playing Gary Coleman) is the superintendent.

Sounds interesting, but I wasn't impressed with the song they chose to showcase, "It Sucks to be Me." I can't say much more about the musical though, because I haven't seen it or heard the music. Watching the Tony's tonight was the first I've heard of it.

I was impressed with the revival of Assassins, a show that didn't even make it to Broadway when it first premiered in 19-- (I want to say 1990, but I'm not sure that's right.) I guess since the music and lyrics were written by Stephen Sondheim, it's no wonder the music impressed me much more than the other show excerpts I saw.

Hugh Jackman...I have no idea who Peter Allen is (I guess he was married to Liza Minelli), but again, I wasn't impressed with his song from "A Boy from Oz." He won Best Lead Actor in a Musical though, so good for him. Oh well. I guess my tastes for Broadway shows are old fashioned.

Anyway, so I'm now inspired to write a musical. The thing is, I'll need help. I can barely write a play, let alone add music and lyrics that actually sound good. Maybe I should jump on the "make musicals from songs by a certain artist" wagon and string some songs together, then tailor a story line around that. Sounds like a cop out though. I'll have to do something from scratch, and hopefully I can do it without adding things like puppets or roller skates to increase shock value.

We'll see. If anyone has any ideas that they'd like to share (because I know a lot of my playwright friends won't tell you about a play until it's done) let me know.