Published: June 11, 2007
The 61st annual Tony Awards last night were dominated by two shows drawn from the 19th century: "Spring Awakening," about sexually frustrated German teenagers in that era, won best musical and most of the other musical awards, while "The Coast of Utopia," Tom Stoppard's epic period trilogy about Russian intellectuals, set a record for the most awards won by a play in Tony history."Coast," an eight-and-a-half-hour epic produced by Lincoln Center Theater, won best play, best director, best featured actor and actress, and several design awards.
"I feel a bit nostalgic, actually," Mr. Stoppard said, "since it's been 40 years since I first came here with a play, and I'm sentimental enough to thank the New York theater for having me, for good times and good friends."
The play was a $7.5 million gamble for the nonprofit Lincoln Center Theater that paid off in critical acclaim and popular success. Bernard Gersten, the theater's executive producer, gave "thanks to the state of the art board of directors of Lincoln Center who urge us on in our follies."
"Spring Awakening," a musical that transferred from the Atlantic Theater Company Off Broadway, won eight awards, including those for best musical, book, score, direction and choreography and best featured actor in a musical.
The stage swarmed with the show's three dozen or so producers when the top award was announced.
"We thank you for creating a Broadway show that rocks," Ira Pittelman, one of the show's lead producers, said to the writers of "Spring Awakening."
In the night's highest-profile nail-biter, Julie White of "The Little Dog Laughed" won best actress in a play, beating out acting legends like Vanessa Redgrave ("The Year of Magical Thinking") and Angela Lansbury ("Deuce"), as well as the actresses Swoosie Kurtz ("Heartbreak House") and Eve Best ("A Moon for the Misbegotten"), whose performances received raves.
"Oh, my God," Ms. White said. "You Tony voters, what a bunch of wacky, crazy kids!"
"To be nominated with such extraordinary women — I never imagined I would be on a list like this unless it was for dinner reservations at Angus," she said, referring to a well-known Broadway hangout. "And then to get the tchotchke!"
A minor upset took place in the best leading actor in a musical category, where David Hyde Pierce, playing a detective in the Kander and Ebb murder mystery-comedy "Curtains," beat out Raúl Esparza from "Company," Jonathan Groff from "Spring Awakening," Michael Cerveris from "LoveMusik," and Gavin Lee from "Mary Poppins."
Mr. Pierce, who looked genuinely stunned, said his first line on a Broadway stage was "I'm sorry, I'm going to have to ask you to leave now." He had been anticipating, he said, that his name would be announced from the stage and he would then be asked to leave.
Frank Langella won the Tony for best actor in a play for his portrayal of Richard Nixon in Peter Morgan's comedy-thriller-docudrama "Frost/Nixon." The category was a particularly strong one this year, featuring critically acclaimed performances by Christopher Plummer, Liev Schreiber, Boyd Gaines and Brian F. O'Byrne, but Mr. Langella had long been the favorite.
"I think we must honor the common bond in us," Mr. Langella said, "for the struggle, the striving for success, because that's a race you simply can't lose."
On the musical side, "Spring" was followed in its victory count by another unconventional Off Broadway transfer, "Grey Gardens," a musical about the eccentric mother and daughter, Edith Bouvier Beale and little Edie Beale.
"I want to thank you all for embracing the two little engines that could, 'Spring Awakening' and 'Grey Gardens,'" said the designer William Ivey Long upon receiving the award for his "Grey Gardens" costumes. "This really is encouraging for all the regional theaters, all the little basement theaters."
Christine Ebersole won for best leading actress in a musical for playing both Big and Little Edie Beale in "Grey Gardens." Though she was in one of the toughest categories of the night, up against Audra McDonald ("110 in the Shade"), Donna Murphy ("LoveMusik"), Debra Monk ("Curtains") and Laura Bell Bundy ("Legally Blonde: The Musical"), Ms. Ebersole was considered a favorite.
"I left Hollywood when they told me I was over the hill," she said. Now, she added: "I'm over the hill in the role of a lifetime! This is so encouraging."
Accepting his award for the score of "Spring Awakening," the composer Duncan Sheik, who cut his teeth in the world of popular music before writing for theater, said to the show's producers: "Thank you for letting this live. You did a very cool thing. And musical theater rocks." (Steven Sater, who won for book, shared that award with Mr. Sheik.)
Michael Mayer won best director for the show, and Bill T. Jones won best choreography. The show also picked up the best featured actor in a musical award, for John Gallagher Jr., who plays the suffering, shock-headed Moritz.
Mr. Gallagher made his Broadway debut just last year; Mary Louise Wilson, who won best featured actress in a musical for her portrayal of the elderly Big Edie Beale in "Grey Gardens," first appeared on Broadway in 1963. This was her first Tony.
"I used to wonder, if I ever won one of these things, would I feel like there was a mistake made, would I feel that way?" she said, looking down at her award. "And — I don't."
"Company," John Doyle's stark adaptation of the 1970 Stephen Sondheim-George Furth musical about marriage and its discontents, won best revival of a musical.
In this category there were echoes of last year, when Mr. Doyle's radical interpretation of Mr. Sondheim's "Sweeney Todd" was up against (but lost to) "The Pajama Game," a more faithful revival. This year "Company," which has struggled at the box office, found itself up against, and eventually prevailed over, the revival of "A Chorus Line," a faithfully restored musical and a box office hit.
The play awards were anything but varied in the early going, with "Coast" picking up every Tony in sight. Billy Crudup won for best featured actor in a play for his portrayal of the literary critic Vissarion Belinsky, while Jennifer Ehle won her second Tony for portraying three different characters in the three parts of "Coast." Jack O'Brien won best director.
"Now let's have no more nonsense about the state of the American theater," Mr. O'Brien said.
And "Journey's End," R. C. Sherriff's World War I drama, which first appeared on Broadway in 1929, won best revival of a play, just hours after it closed following months of anemic sales.
"First, let me put down immediately a widespread rumor," said Bill Haber, one of the lead producers. "The show did not bankrupt me. Close."
In the special theatrical event race, referred to by wags around Broadway as the dummy versus the drag queen, "Jay Johnson: The Two and Only," a show featuring a ventriloquist, beat out "Kiki & Herb Alive on Broadway," a show featuring a cabaret duo (of which Kiki was the drag part).
In a ceremony that took place before the live broadcast, the awards for orchestration, set, costume and lighting design were given out by the cast of "Jersey Boys," two of whom won Tonys last year. "The Coast of Utopia" took all three categories on the play side, as had been predicted, given the scale of the project.
The musical side was mixed, with "Grey Gardens" taking the award for costume design, "Mary Poppins," Disney's stage adaptation of the 1964 movie musical, taking set design and "Spring Awakening" taking lighting design and orchestration.
That means that Bob Crowley, who designed the set for "Mary Poppins" and, with Scott Pask, the set for "The Coast of Utopia," took home two Tony Awards, one for a play and one for a musical.
"This is slightly indecent, actually," Mr. Crowley said, upon picking up his award for "Poppins." "I'm completely gobsmacked."
The show's broadcast kicked off with Marvin Hamlisch playing the well-known opening chords of "One," from "A Chorus Line," currently in revival, segueing into that show's opening number, "I Hope I Get It," and then the famous gold kick line.
The Tony Awards ceremony, broadcast from Radio City Music Hall, is the last hurrah of the Broadway season, which was crowded and unusually eclectic this year. Though there was no monster new hit — "Mary Poppins" being the only show that came close — Broadway as a whole continued to flourish, setting a new record for paid attendance with 12.3 million people. That's a jump of 2.6 percent from the previous year, according to the League of American Theaters and Producers. Grosses grew at a much higher rate, up 8.9 percent to $939 million from $862 million. The discrepancy is due in large part to increasing ticket prices, including the now prevalent "premium" tickets, which can go for as much as $350.
The Tony Awards are voted on by 785 producers, journalists, union officials and other industry professionals. They are presented by the league and the American Theater Wing, a nonprofit service organization that created the Tonys in 1947.
The television ratings for the Tonys have traditionally been less than impressive, a problem made worse this year with the broadcast up against the final episode of "The Sopranos" on HBO. This time around, an idea was floated this time around to include musical numbers from shows that weren't nominated — traditionally excluded from performing at the ceremony — but the plan was rejected. For the second year in a row, there was no master of ceremonies, but a rotating cast of presenters, including Harvey Fierstein, Felicity Huffman and Usher.
At the pre-broadcast ceremony, the Alliance Theater in Atlanta was given the annual regional theater award, the only recognition for work outside Broadway.
(Source: The New York Times | Theater | 'Spring Awakening' and 'Coast of Utopia' Rack Up Tony Awards)
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