The Tony Awards are usually the best awards show of the year to watch, but they are also the worst to experience on social media, simply because so much of what you encounter is theater people who are exasperated with every single thing that happens. (It often feels like the entire evening is just people sighing and rolling their eyes.) It's ironic, then, that Sunday night's Tonys seemed to get off to a rough start in part because so many of the theater people didn't get, or didn't care about, the movie reference.
Host Hugh Jackman, taking on the impossible task of following last year's Neil Patrick Harris opening number (maybe the best one on any awards show, ever), jumped off the red carpet and into the theater. Jump, jump, jump, jump. It was an homage to a famous number called "Take Me To Broadway," performed by the wonderful film dancer Bobby Van in Small Town Girl, but probably better known because it shows up in the dance-centric compilation film That's Entertainment Part II. (Van is also in the great "Tom Dick Or Harry" number — along with Tommy Rall and some guy named Bob Fosse — in the uneven film adaptation of the inherently uneven Kiss Me Kate.)