TVSquad

CBS has secured even more celebrities to grace the stage at Radio City Music Hall next Sunday. Gabriel Byrne (In Treatment), Julie Chen (Big Brother), Harry Connick, Jr. (Will & Grace), Laurence Fishburne, Mandy Patinkin (Criminal Minds), David Hyde Pierce, Lily Tomlin and John Waters (Til Death Do Us Part) have been added as presenters. These actors and actresses (and, er, Julie Chen) will join an already stellar list of presenters and host Whoopi Goldberg.

I have to admit it. I'm getting a little excited for The Tonys. I usually find them boring. The performances are fantastic but the awards in between are a bit of a snore. However, this cast of presenters is intriguing. I'll at least be flipping back and forth hoping to catch the performances and my favorite stars.

The 62nd Annual Tony Awards will be held on Sunday June 15th from 8:00 to 11:00 p.m. ET on CBS.

CBS is rounding up some A-listers to appear at The Tony Awards this year. Alec Baldwin (30 Rock), Kristin Chenoweth (Pushing Daisies), Glenn Close (Damages), Richard Griffiths, Laura Linney (John Adams), John Lithgow, Liza Minnelli, Mary-Louise Parker (Weeds), Daniel Radcliffe, Brooke Shields (Lipstick Jungle) and Marisa Tomei will be presenters at this year's award show. As previously announced, Whoopi Goldberg of The View, a Tony-winner herself, will be this year's host.

Also, the Tony Award-winning productions The Lion King and Rent will make rare encore performances at this year's gala.

The 62nd Annual Tony Awards will be broadcast live from Radio City Music Hall on Sunday, June 15th from 8:00 to 11:00 p.m. ET (delayed PT) on CBS. Here's my issue with the Tonys. It's long and it's usually a snore. Do you think this effort to spice up the show will pay off? Does it make you want to tune in?

Finally someone shows some love for Lost, which got itself back on track last season. The Directors Guild announced their nominees for this year's awards. Lost nabbed two nominations in the Dramatic Series category, for "The Looking Glass" and "The Brig." The Sopranos picked up two of the three remaining nominations, saving the last one for AMC's excellent freshmen drama, Mad Men.

On the comedy side, 30 Rock nabbed two nominations, with Desperate Housewives and Entourage picking up one each. And the critical love for ABC's incredibly charming Pushing Daisies continues as it snatches the final spot. But one category in which the Directors think very differently than anyone else is in Reality Programs. Not only is the kitschy Who Wants to be a Superhero? nominated, but is joined by Shooting Sizemore and Pros vs. Joes. The full list, including commercials, documentaries and mini-series after the jump.

This year the Tony Awards garnered the lowest ratings since 1992. Most people are quick to say that it's because they were broadcast on the same night as the finale of The Sopranos but we all know better, don't we?

The Tony Awards are given for excellence on Broadway, which for many years now has been an oxymoron. Aside from the occasional movie star driven vehicle like Martin Short's Fame Becomes Me or blockbusters like The Producers, Broadway has done very little of note in a long time. More importantly, any decent Broadway production is overpriced while also being sold out, giving average Americans little chance to ever see a Broadway show.

• At 7, CBS has a new 60 Minutes, followed by The 61st Annual Tony Awards.
• NBC has a new, two-hour Dateline at 7.
• At 8, TCM has Bringing Up Baby, with Cary Grant and Katharine Hepburn.
• At 8:30, The Loop returns with a new episode on FOX (there's another new episode at 9:30).
• At 9, PBS has a new Mystery!
• HBO has the series finale of The Sopranos at 9, followed by the series premiere of John From Cincinnati.
• Food Network has a new Next Food Network Star at 9, then a new Challenge.
• At 10, Showtime has the season finale of The Tudors.
• E! has a new Simple Life Goes To Camp at 10, followed by a new Sunset Tan.
• There's a new Army Wives on Lifetime at 10.

Check your local TV listings for more.

NBC has ramped up the promotion for their new reality show, You're The One That I Want. We've mentioned the show a couple times in the past. The short version is that contestants are going to compete for the roles of Danny and Sandy in a new production of the Grease musical.

That's all well and good, but I can't help but wonder just who is going to watch that. Musical theater certainly does have a core audience, but I have a feeling that it's not big enough to measure up to the demands of prime-time network TV. I get the idea behind the show, it's got the singing of Idol and the dancing of DWTS, but that doesn't make it Idol or DWTS. We've already seen what happens when people try to clone these shows. The One and Skating with Celebrities come to mind.

Movin' Out, choreographer Twyla Tharp's take on the music of Billy Joel, is coming to television, thanks to PBS warhorse Great Performances.

Movin' Out received mixed, leaning towards favorable, reviews during its Broadway and out-of-town runs. Tharp won a Tony for her choreography, and Joel shared a Tony for its orchestration. This Joel-inspired outing hasn't been nearly as panned as Tharp's most recent take on Bob Dylan's catalog - The Times They are A-Changin'.

While the show has yet to be filmed by PBS, we can expect to see it on the air in the late winter or early spring of 2007.

This obituary doesn't go into Barnard Hughes' many years of television work, so I will.

Hughes starred in many TV shows over the years, including Blossom, The Cavanaughs, Mr. Merlin, Doc, As The World Turns, The Guiding Light, and had recurring roles on both All in the Family and The Bob Newhart Show. He guest starred in many shows since the 50s, including Hawaii Five-O, Lou Grant, The Love Boat, Cannon, Kraft Television Theater, Hotel, Tales From The Darkside, and Hotel. His most recent role, in 2000, was on Deadline. He also starred in the classic TV movie The UFO Incident.

Barnard's film roles included Tron, Oh, God!, Hamlet, Midnight Cowboy, First Monday in October, and The Lost Boys, and he was a critically-acclaimed theater actor as well, winning a Tony for Da and starring in Advise and Consent, A Majority of One, Hamlet, The Good Doctor, and many others. He died yesterday of natural causes. 

 

What is it these days with celebrities releasing seemingly unsolicited statements proclaiming that they will NOT host particular awards shows? First it was Chris Rock stating that he won't host the Oscars; now comes word, seemingly out of nowhere, that Oprah Winfrey will NOT be hosting this year's Tony Awards. The AP article on this attributes whatever speculation that Oprah, who produced the musical The Color Purple and will attend the awards, was going to host came from the LA Times' Gold Derby blog. Hm. Doesn't seem like it's enough of a hue and cry for Oprah's people to even care about, much less release a statement. But whatever.