first of all, the statement in the title of this entry is completely crazy to me. i have no idea why they are giving him this honor. anyway, there was a medley of songs he had something to do with at the ceremony and i was lucky enough to catch a telecast of it. with a little help from the fabulous arianne decerb, i’ll give you guys a play by play.

jesus christ superstar
they did the title number from this show, performed by a black man in an ankle-length white coat with a chorus of backup dancers in different levels of formal/beaded ditties. it was horribly over-lit. everything got washed out. i wasn’t quite sure what to do with this one.

sunset boulevard
poor, poor christine ebersole. that’s all i have to say. i can’t even.

evita
that crazed south american woman playing eva peron in the west end revival of “evita” headed up the “buenos aires” number with the same chorus of oddly-clad dancers from the “superstar” number. half the time i was distracted by her accent, and the other half of that time i was distracted with that sandpaper sound your vocal chords make when you’re singing with bad technique. put those two halves together and if i didn’t already know the words to the song i would have thought she was having a seizure. in a bad wig. doing acrobatics.

phantom of the opera
josh groban had the unfortunate pleasure of enchanting viewers with a rousing rendition of “music of the night”. yeah. him? ok. the song? not ok. he made the high notes seem like they took effort to send out. that was far too exaggerated for me.

cats
what ALW tribute would be complete without this iconic show? i’m sure you recall it, the one with the unitards and fur? yes. that one. original cast member betty buckley stepped into the spotlight and began (what else) “memory”. then, during the bridge, the show’s narrator introduced original west end cast member… are you ready for this? …sarah brightman. yes. that sarah brightman. the heffer. with the teeth. she sang some of the song and then let betty finish it off, admitting defeat to betty’s belt. but something was wrong with betty’s belt. “that’s totally not a d flat,” exclaimed north america’s most noted “cats” scholar, arianne decerb. “that sounded like a b. a b. fucking christ.” i wasn’t personally able to identify the actual note betty hit but it certainly wasn’t the one she was aiming for. this was a very sad end to the medley.

the entire cast of this lovely montage of songs came back on for a company bow as the camera intercut shots of ALW sobbing and singing along, blowing kisses to his ex-wife, the usual.

this man should be shot. plain and simple. not given a cute little medal on a rainbow ribbon from the kennedy center. shame on you, kennedy center. shame.