Broadway Celebrates With ‘Tony Awards’
Pull up a seat and pop some corn. Broadway celebrates its biggest night on Sunday when the theater industry rewards itself for excellence.
Yes, it’s the “51st Annual Tony Awards” (CBS at 9), and it’s filled with musical performances from Radio City Music Hall.
Rosie O’Donnell, this year’s host, even struts her stuff in the show’s opening.
The event will feature casts from long-running Broadway musicals such as “Beauty and the Beast,” “Bring in Da Noise, Bring in Da Funk,” “Cats,” “Grease,” “Rent” and “Smokey Joe’s Cafe.”
Twelve Tonys will be doled out. “The Life” has been nominated for the most number, 12. “Steel Pier” is up for 11, “Chicago” was named in eight categories, and “Titanic” and “Juan Darien” were each nominated for five awards.
Jimmy Smits, Julie Andrews, Christine Baranski, Whoopi Goldberg, Mary Tyler Moore and Roseanne will help announce the nominees and winners. Pass the envelope please. May the best of Broadway win.
Highlights
“Lois & Clark,” ABC tonight at 8: Here’s a good, old-fashioned plot. Clark switches bodies with a mobster who cashes in on the Man of Steel’s superpowers and also romances Lois. Hasn’t this been done before?
“NBA Basketball,” NBC Sunday at 4: The NBA Championship series starts with the Utah Jazz taking on the Chicago Bulls.
“Port Charles,” ABC Sunday at 9: Daytime soap fans get a prime-time dose of suds and stuff when the network tries to hook viewers on its latest afternoon serial.
This “General Hospital” spinoff features familiar “Hospital” cast members Kin Shriner and Lynn Herring as they contend with life in and around the hospital.
Cable Calls
“The Substitute” (1996), HBO tonight at 8: An inner-city high school student-gang leader is taught a lesson in humility by a mercenary (Tom Berenger) whose girlfriend, a teacher at the school, was attacked by the gang. Now he’s using all his talents to get even.
“The Lost Children of Berlin,” A&E tonight at 6 and 10: In 1942 the Gestapo closed down the last Jewish school in Berlin. In 1996 the school reopened, and some 50 former students reunited in Berlin to remember life at the school and in the city before and during World War II.
This reunion is bittersweet, filled with powerful memories and candid observations about Nazi treatment of the Jews. Have a hanky handy.
“Love-Struck” (1997), FAM Sunday at 7: In a lighthearted, easy-viewing love story, Costas Mandylor plays Cupid, who’s hit by one of his own arrows. He falls for Cynthia Gibb, a dentist determined never to fall in love again.
You can guess all of it from start to finish.
Gibb, Mandylor and even Suzanne Somers seem to be having so much fun with this comedic romance that it’s hard not to be love-struck by this movie too.
“Impact,” CNN Sunday at 6: Here you can see Christiane Amanpour’s profile of “Arkan,” an accused architect of Serbian “ethnic cleansing” in Croatia and Bosnia. It’s full of shocking tidbits that will leave you thinking about the report long after it ends.
Movie Marquee
“Arachnophobia” (1990), TBS Sunday at 6: This movie is not for everyone, especially those squeamish about spiders. The main character in this film (Jeff Daniels) finds himself fighting an army of killer spiders.
xxxx O’Grady saga retold “Behind Enemy Lines: The Scott O’Grady Story,” DISC Sunday at 9 p.m. and 1 a.m.: This suspenseful documentary recalls Air Force Capt. Scott O’Grady’s incredible survival skills. As you may remember, the former Spokane resident was the pilot shot down in an F-16 fighter over Bosnia. For days, he survived on rainwater and ants while American forces prepared to rescue him. Family members and his Marine rescuers are interviewed. Included in the hour are actual radio recordings and footage of rescue preparations.