Neil Patrick Harris has become so ubiquitous as an awards-show host that Letterman now uses him as a punch line. But he can’t be beat at the Tonys: he sings, he dances, he pokes fun at himself, and he tells gay jokes (“Welcome to the Tonys — or, as we like to call it, 50 Shades of Gay”). He made a few missteps, like that dopey list of new movie-musical hybrids (The Towering Infer–No, No, Nanette). But his opening number, riffing on why life can’t be more like the theater, was clever and nicely staged; he speed-raced expertly through a medley of seemingly every song ever written for Broadway, and his song over the closing credits, complaining that he’s run out of time, just might have been the best closing number in awards-show history.
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