A good night at the Emmys, for some
Congrats to Tina Fey.
It’s been a good month for the University of Virginia grad. Her portrayal of GOP vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin on the season opener of “Saturday Night Live” had fans and NBC bigwigs hoping that she will return again and again.
Sunday night, Fey added more gold to her trophy case. At the 60th annual Emmy Awards, Fey was voted the top lead actress in a comedy for the second year in a row. She also picked up another Emmy for best writing in a comedy series. All told, her show, “30 Rock,“ was nominated for 17 statuettes.
But there was more good news on the semi-local front.
“Autism: The Musical” won an Emmy for nonfiction special. Before it appeared on HBO, however, the documentary was shown in Charlottesville last year at the Virginia Film Festival.
Director Tricia Regan and producer Perin Chiles were both at the Paramount to discuss the film, which documented five autistic children who wrote, rehearsed and performed their own full-length musical.
And then there are those of us at The Daily Progress who feel we can predict the Emmy winners. We did. We did it badly.
There were 15 categories. The most we guessed correctly was seven.
We were skunked on reality host (Jeff Probst.) We also were woeful with all things supporting. All six of us missed supporting actor and actress in a comedy (Jeremy Priven and Jean Smart) and supporting actor and actress in a drama (Zelijko Ivanek and Dianne Wiest.)
But here’s how we finished. Yours truly tied with assistant city editor/music critic Josh Barney with the above-mentioned lucky seven. The trio who actually write and edit for our entertainment section—Jane Norris, Ben Wood and David A. Maurer—tied for third with four right. Our special guest, TV host Andrea Copeland, had a correct feeling that Kathy Griffin would win her second Emmy.
By the way, Griffin also was in Charlottesville not too long ago for a one-woman show at the Paramount.
Come to think of it, Tommy Smothers, who will be at the Paramount with his brother Dick on Thursday night, was honored for his writing achievements at the Emmys.
Hey, and then there were all the local extras (hi, Dan) who had cameos in the multi-award winning miniseries “John Adams,“ which was filmed outside Richmond.
You just never know who you will meet on our streets.
Stay tuned. This year’s film festival guests will be announced later this week.
Posted by Mary Alice Blackwell at 02:05 PM. Filed under: Entertainment •
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Mary Alice Blackwell was a sportswriter for 11 years before turning in her scorebook to cover cops and courts. The Virginia Tech Hokie joined the staff of The Daily Progress in 1987 and has spent the past dozen or so years writing about actors, musicians, artists, authors and, occasionally, her running buddies. 
