TONYS TONYS TONYS:
PIECE OF THE ROCK

Rock and roll received some kudos at today’s announcement of the Tony Award nominations. The 62nd annual awards ceremony will be broadcast live from New York City's Radio City Music Hall on CBS Sunday night, June 15 at 8 p.m.

In the Heights, a rap, hip-hop and salsa-flavored musical about Latino families in Washington Heights, was the big winner with 13 Tony nods, two for the show’s 28-year-old creator and star Lin-Manual Miranda, including Best Musical and Best Original Score.

Going up against In the Heights in that category is Cry-Baby, the show based on the John Waters movie which starred Johnny Depp, with music by Fountain of Wayne’s Adam Schlesinger and David Javerbaum, also nominated for Best Score.

Passing Strange, a Public Theater presentation created by Stew of perennial L.A. underground band The Negro Problem, with Heidi Rodewald, also got a nod for Best Musical, along with one for Stew and Heidi in the Best Original Score category. In addition, Stew received a nod for Best Performance by a Featured Actor in a Musical.

The other Best Musical nominee is Xanadu, the theatrical version of the 1980 roller-disco camp classic with Olivia Newton-John.

Finally, Rock ‘n’ Roll, playwright Tom Stoppard’s multi-generational epic about Pink Floyd, Marxism and the fall of communism in Czechoslovakia, is up for Best Play against Tracy Letts’ Pulitzer Prize-winning August: Osage County, Conor McPherson’s The Seafarer and Patrick Barlow’s comedic reading of Hitchcock’s The 39 Steps.