I have become unabashedly shameless about flaunting my Tony nomination. It feels like I just got a degree from a prestigious university. I don’t know why one needs to feel accepted or acknowledged by their peers but that feeling is great. Besides this is a once in a lifetime event for me and I plan to suck it dry and enjoy every second of the ride.

The day after the nominations comes the publicity mini junket. On the top floor of the Marriott, hundreds of reporters and thousands of press agents engage the nominees in a flurry of interviews. It becomes a cross between the trading floor at the New York Stock exchange, and a hooligan riot at a soccer game. Each video crew has a draped cubical which serves as a mini studio. Each publicist with client in tow tries to squeeze maximum face time with each interviewer. The questions become the same. The task for the nominee is to come up with different ways to say the same thing over and over. “How did you hear?, Where were you when you heard?, Who first called you?, What does a Tony mean to you?”

Everybody gets their turn in the order they show up until Christopher Plummer appears. The crowd parts and Mr. Plummer trumps everyone in line. The same thing happens when Angela Landsbury arrives. Frank Langella walks through with purpose going only to the reporters he wishes to talk to. You see there is a difference between nominee and legend.

At the beginning of this tour through press-land they give each nominee a lapel pin that has the Tony emblem and says Tony Nominee 2007. It is a beautiful pin and one that I will keep forever (in fact I have only taken it off to go to bed each night since I got it). In this smile fest of interviews the game is to acknowledge each person sporting a lapel button with a heartfelt “Congratulations”. It is fun, akin to calling the bride at a wedding by her new name.

So the game now is to keep my expectations managed until June 10th and realize that the honor has already been bestowed. Some one asked me if this was a dream come true? Actually no, I have never even dared dream about a Tony nomination. There is a line from the film “Broadcast News” when the William Hurt character says to the Albert Brooks character, “What do you do when your life exceeds your dreams?” Brooks says,
“You keep it too yourself.” Good advice and enough said.
As you were,
Jay