Lin-Manuel Miranda called out the Motion Picture Academy Friday after news broke that not all of the nominees for Best Original Song would be performed at this year’s Oscars ceremony.
Variety reported on Thursday that only two of the five nominated songs — Lady Gaga’s “Shallow” from “A Star Is Born” and Kendrick Lamar’s “All the Stars” from “Black Panther” — would be performed live on the Oscar broadcast on Feb. 24, as selected by Academy executives and show producers.
That would leave the songs “I’ll Fight” from “RBG” as performed by Jennifer Hudson, “The Place Where Lost Things Go” from “Mary Poppins Returns” as sung by Emily Blunt, and “When a Cowboy Trades His Spurs for Wings” as performed by Tim Blake Nelson from “The Ballad of Buster Scruggs,” out in the lurch.
A representative for the Academy did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Miranda said in a tweet that the news was “truly disappointing.”
“The 1st time I stayed up to watch the Oscars, it was because I LOVED ‘The Little Mermaid’ & they were going to sing songs from the movie I loved on The Oscars,” Miranda wrote Friday. “If true, and Poppins’ song won’t be performed, truly disappointing. Hostless AND music-less? To quote Kendrick: Damn.”
The Academy has been committed to shortening the Oscars broadcast to under three hours, going as far as announcing winners of some of the undecided below-the-line categories during commercial breaks.
In past years, musical performances of original songs have been left out all together, or in some cases mashed up into a medley rather than individual performances.
See Miranda’s tweet below:
The 1st time I stayed up to watch the Oscars, it was because I LOVED The Little Mermaid & they were going to sing songs from the movie I loved on The Oscars.
If true, and Poppins’ song won’t be performed, truly disappointing. Hostless AND music-less?
To quote Kendrick: Damn. https://t.co/BEXOy7JCId— Lin-Manuel Miranda (@Lin_Manuel) January 25, 2019
The 91st Academy Awards ceremony airs live Sunday, Feb. 24, 5 p.m. PT on ABC. And, of course, the show remains without a host after Kevin Hart stepped down from the job in wake of the resurfacing over past homophobic tweets.