Frank Rich Sounds Off on the 2015 Tony Awards!

The 2015 Tony Awards have come and gone, but that doesn't mean that us theatre fanatics aren't still thinking about every minute of them. Frank Rich, infamous ex-theatre critic of the New York Times, still has lots to say about the ceremony, and he writes about his thoughts in New York Magazine:

If you are judging solely by the numbers, the Tonys were a disaster: an audience of 6.35 million viewers (down from 7.05 million last year) for CBS as opposed to the audiences NBC drew for its live presentations ofThe Sound of Music (nearly 22 million) and Peter Pan (9.2 million). But if you are judging by the amount of embarrassing showbiz kitsch per square inch, the Tonys more than delivered. The big innovation this year was supposed to be the fashion intervention of Anna Wintour, who took control of the wardrobes of the Broadway celebrities (or semi-celebrities) so that they wouldn't look as if they'd just stepped out of a community theater production of The Merry Wives of Windsor. But even she lacked the power to stop Alan Cumming, who co-hosted the ceremony with Kristin Chenoweth, from appearing in shorts for the first span of the evening. Cumming apparently was operating under the delusion that he was being stylish and youthful as opposed to tedious and middle-aged.

The show had a few honestly good moments, particularly toward the end. Larry David was a hilarious presenter, taking the opportunity to blame anti-Semitism for the failure of his own play, Fish in the Dark, to secure a single Tony nomination. Michael Cerveris was modest and direct in accepting his award for his performance in Fun Home. And Kelli O'Hara, the least divalike of Broadway divas, was touching both in her irresistible duet with Ken Watanabe in "Shall We Dance?" from The King and I and in her giddy yet human-scaled response to her Tony win. She was a much-needed antidote to Helen Mirren, who had kicked off the evening with a cold, over-rehearsed, personality-free reaction to her own victory.

But tastelessness was the biggest Tony victor, as usual. A teacher named Corey Mitchell was presented with some sort of award for theatrical education but no one paid him the honor of telling the audience who he was, what he did to earn his Tony, or even where he taught. An appearance by Josh Groban, incessantly promoted all evening, turned out to consist of a mediocre rendition of "You'll Never Walk Alone," in which the close-up shots of his pious warbling were allowed to upstage the luminaries ostensibly being saluted in the "In Memoriam" section. R.I.P. indeed.

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Frank Rich joined New York Magazine in June 2011 as Writer-at-Large, writing monthly on politics and culture, and editing a special monthly section anchored by his essay. He is also a commentator on nymag.com, engaging in regular dialogues on the news of the week.

Rich joined the magazine following a distinguished career at the New York Times, where he had been an op-ed columnist since 1994. He was previously the paper's chief drama critic, from 1980 to 1993. His weekly 1,500-word essay helped inaugurate the expanded opinion pages that the Times introduced in the Sunday "Week in Review" section in 2005. From 2003 to 2005, Rich had been the front-page columnist for the Sunday "Arts & Leisure" section as part of that section's redesign and expansion. He also served as senior adviser to the Times' culture editor on the paper's overall cultural-news report. From 1999 to 2003, he was also senior writer for The New York Times Magazine. The dual title was a first for the Times.

He has written about culture and politics for many national publications. His books include Ghost Light: A Memoir and, most recently, The Greatest Story Ever Sold: The Decline and Fall of Truth From 9/11 to Katrina. Rich is also a creative consultant to HBO, where he is an executive producer of two projects,Veep, a comedy series written and directed by Armando Iannucci and starring Julia Louis-Dreyfus, and a documentary on Stephen Sondheim.

A native of Washington, D.C., and graduate of Harvard, he lives in New York City with his wife, the novelist and journalist Alex Witchel. (Bio courtesy New York Magazine)