Antoinette Perry, we salute you (with glittery hats and jazz hands)

I love the Tony Awards. I like them much better than the Oscars, which I also watch every year. The Tony Awards actually seem to matter to the theatre community...much more so than the Academy Awards do to Hollywood. Anyway, I have been a regular viewer of the Tonys (Tonies?) since my childhood. I remember

--the year the Tony Awards were broadcast from the point-of-view of Bonnie Franklin
-- learning who Bob Fosse was from the Tony Awards
-- learning who Stephen Sondheim was from the Tony Awards
-- being stunned to learn that Boyd Gaines was actually a Broadway actor more than a bit-part TV actor
--figuring out who Harold Prince is
--seeing Bernadette Peters sing with a voice like a foghorn while skipping around doing a number from "Sunday in the Park with George"
--learning that whatever it was, Broadway was something fundamentally different and more immediate than a movie

and so, for all their faults, I love the Tony Awards, and will faithfully watch, every year, just because I think this is the kind of awards show that actually OUGHT to be televised, if just to see the warmth and good humor of the Broadway community.

That is all.