There are people who think the opening number is crucial to any show. If so, tonight's Tonys were a rousing success within 10 minutes.

That's when Neil Patrick Harris -- TV's best award-show host -- finished the wonderfully witty opening number. I'll be doing sort of an ongoing commentary as the night goes on; let's start:

In a minute, I'm going to do a chronological view of the Emmys. First, however, let me jump to the good news; then I'll digress:

1) The good -- great, actually -- news: Jim Parsons has won the Emmy for best actor in a comedy series. Parsons is brilliant in "The Big Bang Theory," which has quickly become the best comedy on TV.

OK, we'll try to do this as the Emmys are going on. I'll throw in some comments from time to time; please add yours:

As the opening number of tonight's Tony Awards concluded, we could only drop our jaw. OK, now what do you do for an encore?

Onstage were somewhere between three zillion and four kajillion people. I haven't seen a stage that crowded since ... well, since the writing staff of "Saturday Night Live" won an Emmy.

There were a few flaws -- songs overlapping in a way the human ear can't discern -- but not many. That was the start of what was basically a great night. Here are my comments; please add yours:

For theatergoers, this is both a great week and a wretched one.

The good news involves the Tony Awards. On Sunday (June 7), they'll bring together the best of Broadway, both musicals ("Billy Elliot" is the front-runner) and plays ("God of Carnage" is the front-runner, with the entire cast -- including Jeff Daniels, founder of the Purple Rose Theatre in Chelsea -- as nominees and presenters). Below, I've included my story viewing the Tonys through Neil Patrick Harris, this year's host.