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June Stuff

Dusting around triscribe. FC/P family are abroad. I am in need of yet another staycation.

Life’s a funny thing, except when it’s not that funny. Just sayin’.

A triscribe project is in progress, or the like. I’ll leave it that for the moment. Stay tuned!

I thought that this was an interesting item: “How Panda Express Grew From Family Business to Global Empire” by Vanessa Hua (h/t Museum of the Chinese in America’s Facebook page post).  Andrew and Peggy Cherng’s family business – with Andrew’s restaurant experience insight and Peggy’s engineering background – took them far; and their daughter, Andrea, is a lawyer/business person, who’s Chief Marketing Officer.  I can’t say that I’m big on Panda Express food – Chinese American cuisine indeed, rather than “Chinese,” however that might be defined – but it’s definitely quite an enterprise and a Chinese-American success story.

I mostly watched the Tony Awards on Sunday night, switching back and forth to Game 2 of the NBA Finals (Cleveland vs. Golden State) and the triscribe project to be discussed another time.

Now, I’m no theater follower, but I thought it was mostly entertaining, even if a little bit of the Broadway infomercial feel and the broad campiness of hosts Kristin Chenoweth and Alan Cumming could have been dialed back a little.  I missed some of the bits from “On the Town” and most of the opening stuff (well, I did catch a bit of the “Something Rotten” medley).  I totally missed the presentation of the scene from “Fun Home” and saw it later online; that Sydney Lucas is such a talented young person!  The medley from “An American in Paris” was a pretty to watch.

I like award speeches (Kelli O’Hara’s winning speech for her role in “King and I” was great and spirited; how has she not won a Tony before?!).  I thought that there were some surprising moments.  I didn’t think that the British talent would win so much (Helen Mirren, winning it as Queen Elizabeth II, again, but for the stage).

But, overall, as television, the Tony Awards this year was a little awkward. The Tony Awards ran on time, but some things were a little off-putting, like how Josh Groban sang “You’ll Never Walk Alone” for the “In Memoriam” portion – his singing was fine and the chorus was great, but the production seemed to have delayed the images of the honored deceased and worse, the television screen could not capture the images of the honored deceased in a discernible way, as noted over at the NY Times Live Blog of the Tony Awards, between Charles Isherwood and Dave Itzkoff (and I had no idea if the Radio City Music Hall audience were any better able to see those images).

APA relevance: Ruthie Ann Miles, winning Best Featured Actress in a Musical for her role in “King and I” – she had a long but lovely speech.  And she has quite a singing voice!  (h/t Angry Asian Man blog’s post; see here for this video on NY Times of Miles’ singing “Something Wonderful” for “King and I”).

Ken Watanabe had his moment during the “King and I” sampling, doing the “Shall We Dance” scene with Kelli O’Hara.  I’ve read critics’ concerns about his English-speaking ability (at least with respect to stage work), but as the tv critic Mike Hale noted (link below), Watanabe’s grace and charisma came through – as appropriate for his playing the King.  Plus, I liked how he was thrilled for Kelli O’Hara’s win (who wasn’t, frankly?).

Closing the show with “Jersey Boys” was just odd (as Itzkoff even noted on NY Times live blog). I mean, I liked “Jersey Boys,” and yet “Fun Home” just won and their whole cast and crew got on stage, and the Tony Awards closed it with “Jersey Boys,” which is celebrating its 10 anniversary on Broadway… does that make sense? Not really.

Anyway, I later read the live blog of Isherwood and Itzkoff after the show, and their commentary was hilarious and incisive, I have to say.

I pretty much agreed with NY Times tv critic Mike Hale’s review, to the extent that as television, the Tony Awards could have been better.

I’m hoping to catch some outdoor Shakespeare soon, but that’s a thing in NYC – lots of choices for that around here!  I’m just amazed that it’s June and time flies by.

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