TONY AWARDS
Tony Award (officially The Antoinette Perry Award for Excellence in Broadway Theatre) are awards that are presented by the American Theatre Wing and The Broadway League at an annual ceremony in New York City. The awards are given for Broadway productions and performances, and an award is given for regional theatre. Several discretionary non-competitive awards are also given, including a Special Tony Award, the Tony Honors for Excellence in Theatre, and the Isabelle Stevenson Award. The awards are named after Antoinette “Tony” Perry, co-founder of the American Theatre Wing. The Tony Awards are considered the highest U.S. theatre honor, the New York theatre industry’s equivalent to the Academy Awards (Oscars) for film, the Emmy Awards for television, and the Grammy Awards for music. It also forms the fourth spoke in the EGOT, that is, someone who has won all four awards. (More from Wikipedia)
The saga of the Supremes formed much of the story line for the hit musical Dreamgirls. The musical opened on Broadway in 1981 and won 6 Tony Awards. Twenty-five years later, in 2006, Dreamgirls was made into a popular film starring Jamie Foxx, Beyoncé Knowles, Eddie Murphy, and (fresh from finishing as a finalist on American Idol) Jennifer Hudson. At $80 million, Dreamgirls is the most expensive film ever to feature an all–African-American starring cast.
(April 2015/1)
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Hit Broadway shows come and go, but there is something special about Hamilton, the current hit musical by Lin-Manuel Miranda. The show opened on Broadway about a year ago (August 6, 2015) after an acclaimed Off-Broadway run earlier in the year, and it remains the hottest ticket in town. Hamilton, the Original Broadway Cast album for Hamilton was released the month following the move to Broadway and debuted at #12 on the Billboard Hot 200 Albums chart – remarkably, that is the highest placement for a cast album in more than 50 years. Also, the Tony Awards broadcast this year had its best ratings in 15 years.
Although the celebratory mood was muted due to the mass shooting at the gay nightclub Pulse in Orlando that had just taken place, this year’s Tony Awards ceremony was expected to be a rout for Hamilton; the Off-Broadway production had already racked up 27 awards in 2015 from all quarters. The number of Tony nominations for Hamilton (16) had already set a record.
USA Today reported: “The ultra-popular musical Hamilton had a big night, winning 11 honors including best musical, leading actor for Leslie Odom, Jr., featured actress for Renée Elise Goldsberry, and featured actor for Daveed Diggs. It fell one short of The Producers’ record 12 wins in 2001. . . . It was definitely a historical night for diversity: For the first time in the Tonys’ 70 years, all four musical acting honors were awarded to people of color.”
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The next Andrew Lloyd Webber musical, Evita – my personal favorite among the Webber shows – started out as a rock opera album that was released in 1975. In a novel move, the narrator of the story of Eva “Evita” Perón, the wife of Argentine dictator Juan Perón, is famed South American and Cuban revolutionary Che Guevara (identified only as “Che” initially). Mandy Patinkin launched his career with his Tony-winning role as Che on Broadway; on the original Evita album and in earlier productions, Che is played by Colm Wilkinson, who later became world famous in originating the role of Jean Valjean in the 1985 West End (London) and Broadway musical Les Misèrables.
(September 2016)
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Needless to say, the 2010 Tony Awards were fantastic, with Green Day’s live performance of “American Idiot” pulling no punches. American Idiot was nominated for Best Musical and won two Tonys that night for Best Scenic Design of a Musical and Best Lighting Design of a Musical. The cast album, American Idiot: The Original Broadway Cast Recording “debuted at #43 on the Billboard 200, becoming one of the highest-charting musical soundtracks” (according to Wikipedia).
(June 2017)
