She generated one of many greatest buzz of the night time on the Tony Awards: Alicia Keys was performing a medley of her Broadway musical “Hell’s Kitchen” on Sunday when she exited the auditorium and appeared to hitch Jay-Z on a marble staircase for “Empire State of Thoughts,” Their 2009 love track to New York Metropolis.
“I needed to do one thing loopy – it is my hometown!” Keys mentioned as cameras adopted her out of the auditorium at Lincoln Middle’s David H. Koch Theater. A video display minimize to an on-stage video of Jay-Z, the Brooklyn-born rapper and mogul, acting from the curved marble staircase simply outdoors the auditorium. The keys have been seen becoming a member of him.
There was a motive Jay-Z solely appeared on the Tonys stage in video kind. In an ingenious manufacturing trick, the encounter between two of music’s greatest stars was pre-recorded and punctiliously edited to make it seem seamlessly a part of a dwell efficiency on Sunday night time’s Tony TV present, in keeping with two folks accustomed to the TV broadcast preparations who have been unaware of the published preparations. They’ve the precise to talk out about them. (New York Journal mentioned The clip was beforehand recorded.)
Reside or recorded, the duet turned one of many greatest moments of the night time. The Broadway crowd went wild when Jay-Z concluded with “Brooklyn, New York Metropolis on the Tonys tonight!”
Some within the viewers – who had gathered for a creative celebration the place eight dwell performances every week are the norm – appeared to assume the efficiency was happening dwell outdoors the corridor.
However these outdoors the corridor shortly realized what was taking place. Man Phillippe, who gained the Excellence in Theater Training Award on the ceremony, was watching the present on a display within the foyer, not removed from the marble staircase the place Keys and Jay-Z have been paraded in entrance of a statue of Yasuhide Kobashi. .
“I used to be in all probability saying for a second: ‘Oh, is Jay-Z right here?’” she mentioned, earlier than I spotted it was a stage trick. When she returned to her seat, her mom exclaimed: “That was superb!”
“I used to be like, ‘Effectively, I am glad my mother loved it,'” Philip mentioned.
One other viewers member, Wendall Okay., mentioned: Harrington, a Broadway present designer who acquired a particular Tony Award for her work, mentioned whereas some folks round her appeared confused about whether or not the present was dwell, she wasn’t.
“I wasn’t fooled,” she defined. “I am a projectionist.”
