The Tony Awards opening number Sunday saw Pink suspended from the rafters and lifting Neil Patrick Harris up in the air with her legs while belting, Megan Thee Stallion rapping about a best musical nominee and Lea Michele making jokes about not winning awards.
And then there was the lyric now etched into popular culture: “Gitchie, gitchie Lesley Manville. Gitchie, gitchie Carrie Coon.”
More than 170 performers filled the stage, alongside Tony Awards host Pink, as she guided them through the number, set to a rewritten “Lady Marmalade” that honored Broadway’s leading ladies and included cast members from the season’s shows. This all came together as the brainchild of Dear Evan Hansen and The Greatest Showman composers Benj Pasek and Justin Paul and Mark Sonnenblick, composer of KPop Demon Hunters‘ “Golden.” (Pasek and Paul also collaborated on last year’s opening number for Cynthia Erivo.)
The three chatted with The Hollywood Reporter about how they convinced nominees to participate (spoiler: it wasn’t hard), that flying moment, getting certain jokes in the telecast and the complicated logistics of bringing it all together for the first time on Sunday.
In the number you have Lea Michele singing the line “We don’t do it for the awards,” after she was not nominated for a Tony Award this season. Was that a tough sell for her, or how did you convince her to do that line?
Benj Pasek: She was so down, and she was really excited to be a part of the number. We had heard that she was willing to be a part of it, and we wanted to write a song that celebrated the leading ladies of the season and when we found out that she was willing to be a part of it, we wanted to come up with something that felt like it honored her incredible performance.
Mark Sonnenblick: She was a huge leading lady this season. And I think part of it too is it’s obviously there to set up the nominees and be about the Tonys, but also we were trying to celebrate a lot of other parts of Broadway too, and this whole 12-month period, and there’s a lot of people who were not nominated and who don’t do it for the awards, and so obviously, it made sense to have her sing that, but it was hopefully meaningful. We are not here doing theater to win a Tony, as amazing as it is to be in that position on a night like that night.
June Squibb also got a solo, where she sang the line, “All the parts I played — I slayed em.” Where did that idea come from?
Pasek: The lyric had been written just to have Pink sing it, “Squibby, Squibby, Squibby, June. All the parts she plays, she slays them,” and then we put in a request being like, would June do it? Would she actually sing it herself?
Paul: We were like, wait a second, June Squibb, she was in the original company of Gypsy. This woman has musical experience. She can nail a musical. Let’s see if she’s game. And the ask went out, and it came back that she was totally game, and she slayed it!
Sonnenblick: One of my favorite moments is just watching her do that with Lea and Pink and Hannah Cruz surrounding her, and then watching Danielle Brooks and Queen Latifah, who were sitting next to her, just be like, “Yes!” She did slay it. It was so, so fun.
One of the jokes in the number that stood out to me is Pink saying “Lost Boys and harnesses” and then The Lost Boys’ Ali Louis Bourzgui saying, “And not at the Eagle” [referencing a well-known New York leather bar]. Were you surprised that that made it in? Was there any pushback on the jokes?
Pasek: Honestly, that joke nobody flagged, and we were grateful that we got to have it.
Sonnenblick: It’s one of the producers’ favorite jokes. We didn’t really have pushback, other than who was willing, or with rehearsals, who could be in it, or who wasn’t able to be in it.
Paul: They weren’t content editing, they were down for everything, which was so amazing.
How much did you work with Pink on the opening number? I also wanted to ask about the moment where she lifts Neil Patrick Harris off the ground and is belting. Did that come from you, or from her?
Sonnenblick: That was her idea.We worked with her so closely.
Pasek: She knew that she wanted to do something that was poking fun at herself right away, and she knew that everybody wanted her to fly, so we pitched the idea of her coming out as Peter Pan, and then she was like should I sing some other numbers? And then we’re also close with Neil, and we got to chat with him and her about that, and then she actually sent us a voice memo, where she was like, “Hey, Willow [Pink’s daughter] has a really funny idea. What if I actually sing the Elphaba riff somewhere?” And we were like, “OK, great.”
Paul: Neil was like, “I’m willing to do something, if you want a stunt.”
Sonnenblick: And Pink was like, “Oh, I’ve got something.” “I’ll do this move where I lock my knees…”
Paul: I think someone does that to her in her shows. So then she was like, “I know how to do it.”
And she was just using her legs to lift him off the ground into the air?
Sonnenblick: Literally her legs. It’s so crazy.
The lyric “Gitchie, gitchie Lesley Manville. Gitchie, gitchie Carrie Coon,” is really making the rounds online and in the theater community. How did those lyrics come to fruition?
Pasek: “Leading Lady Marmalade” was not the initial pitch. The initial pitch was just we’re going to rewrite the lyrics to “Lady Marmalade,” because it’s a song I think people are going to go crazy if Pink sings the song, and Alecia [Pink’s real name] really wanted to give a Pink opening that also really honored the Broadway community, so we’re like, we’ll rewrite the lyrics, but not knowing what the kind of actual song title was going to be, and we pitched around a lot of different things, but I feel like it locked in when it was like “It could it be ‘Leading Lady Marmalade,’ that’s theatrical, but is it that funny? I don’t know, it might be too basic. And then I think actually someone said “Gitchie, gitchie Laurie Metcalf” first. And we were like “That is funny.”
Sonnenblick: The thrust of the number is really celebrating the leading ladies of the season, so would it be fun to call out some of the dames and some of the wonderful leading ladies in a really fun, sort of kitschy way? And we wanted to have that spirit of being sort of not serious, and having the voices that we had on it, of Pink, and Shoshana Bean and Christiani Pitts, and these incredible vocalists singing something that was sort of ridiculous over a pop style that had a musical theater lyric to it.
Paul: It was sort of just putting the puzzle together, of like, OK who are the big, fabulous names that we can put into the puzzle pieces that are the the four syllable names to go with “Gitchie. gitchie Laurie Metcalf” or “Gitchie, gitchie Lesley Manville” and then what are the three syllable ones? Carrie Coon. And it’s just filling those in and having fun, and seeing what rhymes, and setting up Betsy Aidem to rhyme with “The parts I played – I slayed ’em.”
Did you take inspiration from any prior opening numbers?
Pasek: I think that “Bigger” [Neil Patrick Harris’s 2013 Tonys opening number] certainly looms large in everybody’s mind, and the choreographer that we worked with, Sarah O’Gleby helped choreograph that number. She helped bring this entire number to life, and she was so helpful in having the vision that every show would be represented, and having 170 people on stage. And so we kind of worked backwards from how she was thinking about staging it.
How long was the rehearsal process?
Sonnenblick: It all came together really, really quickly, as these things, I guess, tend to do. Sarah O’Gleby is such a hero, because had to rehearse every single section of it on different schedules, with different people, and it was really section by section. We weren’t really able to put it all together until Sunday morning, and they rehearsed it three times through, and every time, everybody was giving notes, and Pink was so down to get changes and notes and things that could improve it. But it really was like drinking from a fire hose in a lot of ways. It was so fast and furious. Everybody rehearsed it with such limited time, because they come in and they do like the rehearsal for the Ragtime number or the Schmigadoon rehearsal, and then Sarah could grab them for like 10 minutes at the end of that rehearsal to put together whatever needed to happen.
Paul:There was a rehearsal where things started to get put together, but everyone in the number was not present at a rehearsal until the morning of the Tonys.
Pasek: Even then not everyone was there.
Paul: Actually, there was never a rehearsal with everyone in the number until literally what you’re watching on the Tonys. And I just want to shout out all those casts, because I feel like the number really became a microcosm of the spirit of the night, which is all these companies coming together, celebrating inclusivity, being together. It’s an extra ask for them, it’s an extra burden to be in this opening number, but you could just tell that their spirit was wanting to be together, be on stage, celebrate the community, and deliver something for the audience at home, the audience at Radio City.
Pasek: It was also so cool to have Megan Thee Stallion rap lyrics that we wrote, and also agree to say, “I don’t know, these guys, they’re two strangers carrying some cake,” delivered in the best way. We couldn’t believe that dream actually came true.
Sonnenblick: All of the cameos, in that way, it was just of like I guess we’ll pitch this and see what people say. And then June Squibb says yes, and then Lea says yes, and then Megan Thee Stallion is entering during a Ragtime section…That’s just the joy, everything you’re saying, Justin. That love for the community, came through from everybody, and we were just grateful.
This conversation was edited for length and clarity.