Dear Gossips,

There are a lot of things that make me stupid. One of the ways I’m stupid is that I forget, every year, how delightful the Tony Awards are, how joyful they are, pure joy from start to finish. Most award shows seem long, and most of the people on stage at award shows, despite the fact that they are being lauded, don’t really know how to sustain the entertainment. At the Tonys, however, almost every speech is a moment, even from the people accepting awards who are not household names. Because, as Duana said to me last night, these are people who actually know how to put on a live show. That’s where they live, day after day, “eight times a week”, in a live environment.

There’s a reason Leonardo DiCaprio never performs live, not even on Saturday Night Live. It’s the vulnerability, wide open vulnerability, night after night. There’s no place for anything short of absolute and total exposure. Which is what sets the Tony Awards apart from the other award shows – it’s the earnestness. There’s no room for cynicism and insincerity when you’ve laid yourself out so completely. And when you’ve been doing it for so long. That was the point of #TonyDreaming. They start early, they are theatre geeks for life. And they are relating to all the future theatre geeks watching and imagining from smaller stages being encouraged by mentors like Melody Herzfeld who leads the theatre department at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High in Parkland, Florida and received the Excellence in Theatre Education Award. 

I’ve attached Melody’s acceptance speech below. It’s her reaction from the audience, with her fist in the air, the ultimate cheerleader, to seeing her students performing “Seasons of Love”, that made me fall apart.  

The trauma they’ve been through is unimaginable. But those wide open faces reflecting those wide open hearts? It’s the same whether you’re a theatre amateur or professional, of which I am neither. But I know it to see it. And to appreciate it. 

Yours in gossip,

Lainey