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Page 2 June 8 - 14, 2015 Kristin Chenoweth co-hosts, competes in Tony Awards telecast By John Crook © Zap2it Co-hosting a nationally televised awards show would be stressful enough for most performers, but Kristin Chenoweth is pull - ing double duty during The 69th Annual Tony Awards Sunday, June 7, on CBS. In addition to co-hosting the ceremonies with Alan Cumming ("The Good Wife"), Chenoweth also is a front runner in the race for best performance by an actress in a leading role in a musical for the current Broadway revival of "On the Twentieth Century." Many TV viewers first were introduced to both Chenoweth and Cumming in Rob Marshall's 1999 TV adaptation of "Annie," and the actress says they have been friends for years. "I think the thing that I am most looking forward to is the feeling of being off the cuff," she says of her co-hosting chores. "We're rehearsing and working on some of the material right now, but basically we're just going to have a good time. I'm just looking forward to playing with my buddy." In that televised "Annie," Chenoweth played Cum- ming's dim-bulb girlfriend, Lily St. Regis. In "On the Twentieth Century," she plays another Lily — Os- car-winning actress and diva Lily Garland, who finds herself on the same Chicago-to-New York train as her former mentor and lover Oscar Jaffee (Peter Gallagher). Although Lily is accompanied by her lat- est boy-toy, Bruce Granit (Tony nominee Andy Karl), she and Oscar inevitably start to rekindle old feel- ings as he tries to woo her for his latest theater project. Fans of screwball com- edy may recall the story from its classic 1934 movie incarnation with John Bar- rymore and Carole Lom- bard as Oscar and Lily. Originally created for Madeline Kahn — coin- cidentally, one of Che- noweth's idols — the musi- cal version of Lily is a tour de force for any actress who can belt out difficult, faux-operetta songs while simultaneously delivering the requisite comedy bits. Kahn left only two months after the original produc- tion opened in 1978, un- able to handle the daunting vocal demands for eight performances a week. Chenoweth, who continues in the current production through mid-July, says the role is indeed a killer. "I'll be honest, when I sat down and went over the score, which is just one challenge after another, I thought that this was a mountain I couldn't climb," the actress admits. "And on top of everything else, I knew I had to make it look easy. It's the hardest thing I've ever done, that's for sure, but this is a beast that I am so happy to tack- le every time we do it." Many Tony handicap- pers peg Chenoweth as all but a shoo-in, but her cate- gory also includes two oth- er favorites: two-time Tony winner Chita Rivera, 82, in "The Visit," the last musi- cal from John Kander and Fred Ebb, and Kelli O'Hara in "The King and I." The latter has been nominated in this category five times without a win, and she's gotten stellar reviews for this role, which previously earned Tonys for actresses Gertrude Lawrence and Donna Murphy. As England struggles to cope during the Napoleonic Wars with France, two great English mages engage in a dangerous battle in "Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell," a seven-part miniseries adaptation of Susanna Clarke's fantasy novel premiering Saturday, June 13, on BBC America. The story opens in 1806, as a reclusive gentleman named Mr. Norrell (Eddie Marsan, "Ray Donovan") comes to London to offer his magical services to his government. Norrell has sharpened his powers, which are otherwise long-gone from England, through years of tireless scholarship delving through occult tomes. To gain the trust of a rising politician, Sir Walter Pole (Samuel West), Norrell raises the man's beloved late fiancée from the dead. In doing so, however, Norrell unwittingly unleashes a malevolent faerie spirit (Marc Warren) known as The Gentleman with the thistle-down hair. Norrell is understandably irritated when, as his own fame begins to rise, so does that of another, previously unknown magician, Jonathan Strange (Bertie Carvel), a wealthy dandy whose powers appear to be stronger than Norrell's, albeit with no apparent effort on Jonathan's part. This sets up a tense dynamic like that between Mozart and Salieri in "Amadeus," as each man tries to prove he is the greatest magician in the world. If Jonathan comes by his gifts through no apparent effort on his part, however, the character grows in stature as the story unfolds. "More so than any other script that I have ever read or had a chance to be involved in, the arc of this man's journey is absolutely huge," Carvel says. "The horizon of his story keeps receding, a bit like when you're walking through hills and you get to the top of a peak and you see another one looming beyond it. The story just continually keeps surprising one. By the end of the third episode, you probably feel as if you've experienced seven hours' worth of drama. "Jonathan grows up once when his father dies and then again when he goes to war, yet he continues to grow up again and again and again, and his arc becomes richer and richer as it goes along, like a really good wine." Carvel says that while this sprawling fantasy is epic in scale, he found it fairly easy to master his role simply because screenwriter Peter Harness's adaptation of Clarke's novel is so rich. "My job really is about paying close attention to the words on the page and then letting my imagination rip," he says. "When you're dealing with material like this, that's quite easy, because it's fertile ground for one's imagination, especially one like mine. I've always loved literature and history and been interested in imaginary realms. A lot of stars aligned for me with this role." BY JOHN CROOK Epic fantasy 'Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell' comes to BBC America Bertie Carvel Kristin Chenoweth is a nominee and co-host of The 69th Annual Tony Awards, airing Sunday on CBS.

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