Sean Hayes on hosting the Tonys, his Broadway co-star and Betty White -- but not the Newsweek dust-up

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Sean Hayes, who is nominated for a Tony Award and hosting the CBS awards telecast Sunday night, talked to television writers on a conference call Wednesday, and one of them was T.L. Stanley from our sister blog, Showtracker.

Hayes said he plans to keep the show -- whose presenters and performers include Green Day, Denzel Washington, Cate Blanchett, Will Smith and Jada Pinkett Smith, Daniel Radcliffe, and Lea Michele and Matthew Morrison from ‘Glee’ -- moving briskly. Betty White, who has been everywhere this year, won’t appear because she is working in a new sitcom Hayes is producing, ‘Hot in Cleveland.’

Hayes said of Kristin Chenoweth, who plays Fran Kubelik to his Chuck Baxter in the revival of the Burt Bacharach and Hal David musical ‘Promises, Promises’: ‘She’s an extraordinary talent and an amazing human being who’s been such a huge support system for me. She makes it very easy to fall in love with her on stage every night.’ Hayes is up for best actor in a musical.

Chenoweth came out swinging after a writer for Newsweek magazine said Hayes, who played the gay character Jack on the TV series ‘Will and Grace’ and recently came out himself, turned ‘Promises, Promises’ into ‘unintentional camp’ by playing a heterosexual leading man.

But his paen to Chenoweth was all he would say on that subject.

For Showtracker’s full story, click here.

Above: Hayes in ‘Promises, Promises.’ Credit: Joan Marcus