Which one will viewers tune in?

Posted by the Asbury Park Press on 06/10/07

BY GRETCHEN C. VAN BENTHUYSEN
STAFF WRITER

Tonight is Tonys night.

Or is that Tony's night?

With both the 61st annual Tony Awards and the final episode of HBO's "The Sopranos" going head-to-head, which one will TV viewers whack?

The Tony Awards, honoring Broadway's finest productions, air from 8 to 10 p.m. on CBS, Channels 2 and 3. "The Sopranos," a cable-TV series about a fictitious New Jersey Italian-American crime family, airs from 9 to 10.

Paid attendance at Broadway plays is up 2.6 percent, with 12.3 million people seeing Broadway shows during the season that ended last month, according to the League of American Theatres and Producers.

But what show will they all be talking about at the office water cooler Monday morning?

Can Tony Award presenters such as Matthew Broderick, Bernadette Peters, Harry Connick Jr., Brian Dennehy, Anne Heche, Judd Hirsch, Angela Lansbury, Christopher Plummer, Liev Schreiber and Kevin Spacey compete for attention with "Sopranos" characters Silvio Dante, Paulie "Walnuts" Gualtieri and Dr. Jennifer Melfi, let alone Carmela, Meadow, A.J. and Tony Soprano?

This must be why we have recording devices built directly into our TVs.

Here's the deal: Watch the first hour of the Tony Awards, then start your recorder. Switch to the last episode of "The Sopranos" from 9 to 10 p.m. Then go back to the Tonys and fast-forward through the commercials so you can be in bed before midnight.

See you at the water cooler.

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