Elton John, Dolly Parton to perform at Tonys

The Tony Awards will include a few bona fide music stars among the usual song-and-dance numbers. Elton John, Dolly Parton and Poison will help toast Broadway's finest at Sunday's ceremony, performing with the casts of top-nominated shows "Billy Elliot The Musical," "9 to 5 The Musical" and "Rock of Ages."

"A bunch of the shows are getting together and doing a mash-up," said Constantine Maroulis of "Rock of Ages," the tongue-in-cheek hair metal tribute that features original music by Journey, Pat Benatar and Bon Jovi and is vying for five awards including best musical.

"It'll be really cool -- one of those TV-magic moments." The New Jersey-bred rock singer and "American Idol" alumnus couldn't reveal which song he'd be performing with Brett Michaels and company, but he hinted at "Nothin' But a Good Time" by saying that it was "something more up-tempo" than the other Poison song performed in the musical, "Every Rose Has Its Thorn."

Parton will perform with the cast of "9 to 5 The Musical," which earned four nominations including best original score. Parton wrote the score for the musical as well as the original song "Backwoods Barbie," also the title track of her latest album. "I've been working on this for four years," the country veteran said at the time, adding that it "was fun for me. It's a different process. I had much more freedom writing for the stage than I do for records."

John will appear at Sunday's ceremony to perform with the cast of "Billy Elliot The Musical," which goes into the night with 15 nominations, tying the record set by "The Producers" in 2001.

"I don't expect to win at all, actually," said Maroulis, who's competing for best actor in a musical against the three children who play Billy Elliot. "I haven't even thought about it 'cause I know that I'm not going to; those Billy Elliot kids are extraordinary."

The Tony Awards will be broadcast on CBS from Radio City Music Hall in New York.

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"Billy Elliot" set to win big at Tony Awards

"Billy Elliot The Musical" is likely to dance away with a haul of Tony Awards, critics say, when the top U.S. theater honors are announced on Sunday for a Broadway season that defied recession with record sales.

In the running for 15 Tony Awards, "Billy Elliot" is based on Oscar-nominated director Stephen Daldry's 2000 film about a ballet dancing schoolboy in a mining town in northern England. The show has already won 10 Drama Desk Awards and seven Outer Critics Circle Awards.

Critics from the New York Times, New York Post and New York Daily News agree the production will win best new musical, Daldry will be named best director of a musical and the three teenage actors who share the role of "Billy Elliot" will together win for best lead actor in a musical.

"Billy Elliot is going to do quite well," New York Post theater columnist Michael Riedel told Reuters. "It's a very emotionally moving and absorbing story, extremely well directed by Stephen Daldry."

The Los Angeles Times entertainment awards website, The Envelope, which has so far polled 10 critics for its Tony picks, predicts "Billy Elliot" will win at least 11, including best original score by Sir Elton John and Lee Hall, who also wrote the film and the musical production.

The show is competing against "Shrek the Musical," "Next to Normal" and "Rock of Ages" for best new musical. "Next to Normal" star Alice Ripley is tipped to win best lead actress in a musical for her role as a bipolar suburban housewife.

"God of Carnage" is the front-runner for best new play. Its all-star cast -- former "Sopranos" star James Gandolfini, Marcia Gay Harden, Hope Davis and Jeff Daniels -- have all been nominated in the best actor and actress in a play categories.

PLAYS VS "CHEESY TOURIST CRAP"

Harden is tipped to win best actress in a play, while best actor is widely expected to go to Oscar-winner Geoffrey Rush, who had rave reviews for his Broadway debut in "Exit the King," which also starred Susan Sarandon.

"The Norman Conquests," a trilogy of comedies that came to Broadway from a sold-out run in London, is the favorite to win best revival of a play, while groundbreaking 1960s rock musical "Hair" appears the one to beat for best revival of a musical.

"It's nice to see Broadway is hospitable to serious dramas and well-made, intelligently written comedies," said Riedel. "The danger was that Broadway was going to be swamped by these god awful things like 'Shrek' and '9 to 5' and all this cheesy tourist crap, but the straight play has held its own."

The Broadway League says the 39 theaters in the famous district contribute $5.1 billion per year to the economy of New York, on top of ticket sales, and support 44,000 jobs.

During the 12-month Broadway season ending May 24, 43 shows opened -- the most in more than 25 years, said the Broadway League. There were 10 new musicals, eight new plays, four musical revivals, 16 play revivals and five special shows.

"We had so many great new shows that were so well reviewed that the competition was tough," said Broadway League Executive Director Charlotte St. Martin.

"There is definitely a growing trend toward having more limited runs and due to the writers strike last year we had a lot of big box office stars from both movies and television that had some time available."
Broadway's paid attendance was 12.15 million tickets, down from 12.27 million the previous season, but gross takings rose $6 million, or 0.6 percent, to $943.3 million, beating the previous record set in the 2006/07 season of $938.5 million.

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