The Guide: The Tony Awards
Curtain up! Light the lights! On June 10, for the 61st time, Broadway’s best will be honored at the Tony Awards, a glitzy celebration of the Great White Way. Televised live on CBS from Radio City Music Hall, the show will feature performances from the nominated musicals and appearances by past Tony winners. The awards, co-presented by the American Theatre Wing and the League of American Theatres and Producers, are named for Antoinette Perry, an actress, director, and producer who led the American Theatre Wing during World War II. This year’s nominations will be announced May 15. (Continental is the official airline of the Tony Awards.)
The Tony Awards debuted in the Grand Ballroom of the Waldorf Astoria hotel on April 6, 1947, an Easter Sunday. Among the winners that night were the playwright Arthur Miller, for All My Sons; José Ferrer, who played the title role in Cyrano de Bergerac; Helen Hayes, for her performance in the all-but-forgotten Happy Birthday; and Agnes de Mille, for her choreography of Brigadoon. Miller would go on to win five Tonys in all, including a lifetime achievement award. The Tony presentation was first televised nationally in 1967, 20 years after the first ceremony. Last year the big winners were Jersey Boys (Best Musical) and The History Boys (Best Play).
The Award
At first, there was no trophy — just a scroll and a cigarette lighter (for men) or a compact (for women). In 1949, Herman Rosse won a contest to design a Tony trophy. In 1967, a four-inch black Lucite pedestal with a curved armature was added to the four-inch-high statuette. Winners get their names engraved after the show.
The Envelope, Please
The nominations will be announced May 15, but it’s never too early to bet on the likely winners. Here are our picks.
» Best Play: The heavyweight is Tom Stoppard’s intellectually dense The Coast of Utopia (right), a trilogy whose parts — Voyage, Shipwreck, and Salvage — could be nominated individually.
» Best Musical: Critics are swooning over Spring Awakening, the rock musical adaptation of Frank Wedekind’s 1891 German play about adolescent angst.
» Best Musical Revival: Best Musical Revival: Director John Doyle’s elegant Company, with the cast doubling as the orchestra. The original 1970 version of this Sondheim classic took six Tonys, including Best Musical.
» Best Actor in a Musical: Raúl Esparza, for his soul-baring, show-stopping rendition of “Being Alive” in Company.
» Best Actress in a Musical: Christine Ebersole is the critics’ darling for her double role in Grey Gardens.
Brief Encounter
Dolores Gray set a record for the briefest-ever star turn to win a Tony. In Carnival in Flanders (1953), she took the stage just six times.
The Most Nominated Musical
Mel Brooks’ The Producers (2001) is the most nominated musical, with 15, and the top winner, with 12 awards. The show garnered multiple nominations in acting categories.
21: The record for most awards won
Harold Prince has received eight for directing, eight for producing, two for producer of the year’s Best Musical, and three special awards.
Two performers have won Tonys for playing a member of the opposite sex:
Mary Martin in the title role of Peter Pan (1955) and Harvey Fierstein as Edna Turnblad in Hairspray (2003).
All in the Family
Richard Rodgers won six Tonys as a composer and producer of South Pacific, The King and I, No Strings, and The Sound of Music, as well as three special Tonys. Adam Guettel, his grandson, won two Tonys in 2005 for his score for The Light in the Piazza. Mary Rodgers (Richard’s daughter, Guettel’s mother) was nominated in 1960 for her music for Once Upon a Mattress, continuing a family tradition.
