Yes, a little bit of parochial preening is in order. Our Geoffrey just won the Tony for best actor for his role in the Broadway run of Exit the King - which premiered at our very own Malthouse, of course, in a Belvoir St co-production. What larks, eh?

Meanwhile, my review of the Broadway show Avenue Q is in today's Australian.

Yes, it's that time of year: I seem to be knee-deep in nominations. The shortlist for the 2009 Australian Dance Awards was announced today, and an interesting list of performance it is. The nominations are dominated by the Sydney Dance Company, with Tanja Liedtke's last work, construct, made before she was tragically killed last year, garnering four nominations, and four others for different works.

Melbourne dancer/choregrapher Antony Hamilton recieved two nominations, one for his choreographic work in BlazeBlue Oneline, and one for his work in Lucy Guerin's Corridor, and the Australian Ballet three. And Eddie Perfect gets a nod too, for Shane Warne the Musical. On a personal note, Ms TN is delighted to see that her colleague - or former colleague these days, now he's left the Australian for the delights of Canberra - Lee Christofis has been nominated for services to dance. You can find the full list of nominations here.

Meanwhile, the Malthouse's Broadway debut, Exit the King, is collecting nominations like, well, like a very successful show. The Tonys, announced yesterday, are the big ones, and they've got four - one for Geoffrey Rush, two (best design and best costumes) for designer Dale Ferguson, and one for best sound design for Russell Goldsmith. Congratulations to all of them.

A combination of a lingering cold and the pointy end of my novel has meant that for the past couple of weeks I've been cancelling tickets to plays right, left and centre (three at last count). My apologies to the companies involved; I'm not normally, I assure you, quite so disastrously unreliable. I'm not sure what sort of person I will be when I no longer have this epic story cluttering up my brain, but I'm optimistic that I might be merely a poet, writing very short things.

I also feel strangely obliged to mention the Tonys. Tom Stoppard's gigantic Coast of Utopia swept the awards, as most of you will know by now, and the musical of Spring Awakening - something, I confess, that I can't quite imagine, though you can check out one of the songs and download ringtones here - was another big winner. Myself, I'd rather see the actual play... The Playgoer is your Tonys man.