The reason I come up to New York at this specific time of the year is that it is the final week of Tony Award eligibility, when there is a last burst of openings for the season. But in addition, this is the week of the Easter Bonnet Competition, a two-performance celebration of the end of the annual fund-raising begathon drive at New York theaters for Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS.
For two afternoons only, the casts of shows write, produce and perform skits and songs, often making fun of their own show or competing shows, climaxing in the entrance of an elaborate, frequently motorized giant hat constructed by their technical crew. Some of the best skits can get pretty snarky, but there is an underlying affection and sense of community among the theater companies, as well as cutthroat competition to be declared the best skit and/or best bonnet.
Among the better bits at this year’s 27th annual Bonnet was a dance-and-sing-off between the kid newspaper hawkers of Newsies and the orphans of the current revival of Annie. And the cast of Spider-Man doing numbers from Pippin, as they would look if the show about the son of Charlemagne were staged as a Marvel Comics circus.
Most of the performers are chorus and ensemble members, but among the stars who participated were Nathan Lane (The Nance), Andrea Martin (Pippin), Billy Porter (Kinky Boots) and even Tom Hanks (Lucky Guy), who had been mercilessly teased prior to his unbilled appearance. There is more talent and entertainment in the Easter Bonnet Competition than in many a show on Broadway.
This evening, I saw the latest play by the very funny Christopher Durang, Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike, a faux-Chekhovian comedy about three grown ― if not exactly mature ― offspring of college professors with an affection for the great Russian playwright. Vanya (David Hyde Pierce) and Sonia (Kristine Nielsen) have long been resentful of their movie star sister Masha (Sigourney Weaver), who arrives at their Bucks County home with her latest boy toy ― yeah, the very unclassical Spike.
Durang shows he can still write sure-fire laugh lines, but also gives Nielsen a heart-tugging monologue on the phone with a potential suitor. And Pierce gets to deliver a great non-stop rant about why the simpler, less electronic ’50s were better than today. Vanya and Sonia may not have sufficient depth to win the Best Play Tony, but it sure is entertaining.