The ceremony
The theme of the ceremony was to commemorate the 100th anniversary of theatre in Times Square, and the telecast opened with a new song, "Celebrate Broadway." The musical presentation was a "Sisters Medley" with sisters Liza Minnelli and Lorna Luft. The finale was Oklahoma! , with 1993 Tony Award winners and Company.
Times Square is a major commercial intersection, tourist destination, entertainment center and neighborhood in the Midtown Manhattan section of New York City at the junction of Broadway and Seventh Avenue. It stretches from West 42nd to West 47th Streets. Brightly adorned with billboards and advertisements, Times Square is sometimes referred to as "The Crossroads of the World", "The Center of the Universe", "the heart of The Great White Way", and "the heart of the world". One of the world's busiest pedestrian areas, it is also the hub of the Broadway Theater District and a major center of the world's entertainment industry. Times Square is one of the world's most visited tourist attractions, drawing an estimated 50 million visitors annually. Approximately 330,000 people pass through Times Square daily, many of them tourists, while over 460,000 pedestrians walk through Times Square on its busiest days.
Lorna Luft is an American television, stage, and film actress and singer. She is the daughter of singer and actress Judy Garland and producer Sidney Luft, and half-sister to singer and actress Liza Minnelli.
Oklahoma! is the first musical written by the team of composer Richard Rodgers and librettist Oscar Hammerstein II. The musical is based on Lynn Riggs' 1931 play, Green Grow the Lilacs. Set in farm country outside the town of Claremore, Indian Territory, in 1906, it tells the story of farm girl Laurey Williams and her courtship by two rival suitors, cowboy Curly McLain and the sinister and frightening farmhand Jud Fry. A secondary romance concerns cowboy Will Parker and his flirtatious fiancée, Ado Annie.
Presenters: Bea Arthur, Tom Bosley, Matthew Broderick, Ellen Burstyn, Diahann Carroll, Michael Crawford, Tyne Daly, Tammy Grimes, Marvin Hamlisch, Julie Harris, Gregory Hines, James Earl Jones, Agnes de Mille, Amanda Plummer, Jonathan Pryce, Mercedes Ruehl, Ron Silver, Lily Tomlin, Tommy Tune, Ben Vereen.
Beatrice Arthur was an American actress and comedienne.
Thomas Edward Bosley was an American actor, voice artist, television personality, and entertainer. Bosley is best known for portraying Howard Cunningham on the 1970s ABC sitcom Happy Days, and the title character on the NBC/ABC series Father Dowling Mysteries. He also was featured in a recurring role on Murder, She Wrote. He originated the title role of the Broadway musical Fiorello!, earning the 1960 Tony Award for Best Performance by a Featured Actor in a Musical.
Matthew Broderick is an American actor, comedian and singer. His roles include the Golden Globe-nominated portrayal of the title character in Ferris Bueller's Day Off (1986), the voice of the adult Simba in Disney's The Lion King trilogy (1994–2004), and Leo Bloom in both the Broadway musical The Producers and its 2005 film adaptation. Other films he had starring credits in include WarGames (1983), Glory (1989), The Freshman (1990), The Cable Guy (1996), Godzilla (1998), Election (1999), Inspector Gadget (1999) and You Can Count on Me (2000). Broderick also directed himself in Infinity (1996) and provided voice work in Good Boy! (2003), Bee Movie (2007), and The Tale of Despereaux (2008).
Performers: Barry Bostwick, Liza Minnelli, Bill Irwin, David Shiner, and cast members from Cats ; Crazy For You ; Falsettos , Guys and Dolls ; Jelly's Last Jam ; The Will Rogers Follies .
Barry Knapp Bostwick is an American stage and screen actor and singer. He is best known for portraying Brad Majors in the musical comedy horror The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975) and Mayor Randall Winston in the sitcom Spin City (1996–2002). Bostwick has also had considerable success in musical theatre, winning a Tony Award for his role in the musical The Robber Bridegroom.
William Mills Irwin is an American actor, clown, and comedian. He began as a vaudeville-style stage performer and has been noted for his contribution to the renaissance of American circus during the 1970s. He has also made a number of appearances on film and television, and he won a Tony Award for his role in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf on Broadway. He is also known as Mr. Noodle on the Sesame Street segment Elmo's World, has appeared in the Sesame Street film short Does Air Move Things?, and regularly appeared as a therapist on Law and Order: SVU.
David Shiner is an American actor, clown, playwright and theater director.
Musicals and Plays represented:
Blood Brothers is a musical with book, lyrics, and music by Willy Russell. The story is a contemporary nature versus nurture plot, revolving around fraternal twins Mickey and Eddie, who were separated at birth, one subsequently being raised in a wealthy family, the other in a poor family. The different environments take the twins to opposite ends of the social spectrum, one becoming a councillor, and the other unemployed and in prison. They both fall in love with the same girl, causing a rift in their friendship and leading to the tragic death of both brothers. Russell says that his work was based on a one-act play that he read as a child "about two babies switched at birth ... it became the seed for Blood Brothers."
The Goodbye Girl is a musical with a book by Neil Simon, lyrics by David Zippel, and music by Marvin Hamlisch, based on Simon's original screenplay for the 1977 film of the same name.
Kiss of the Spider Woman is a musical with music by John Kander and Fred Ebb, with the book by Terrence McNally. It is based on the Manuel Puig novel El Beso de la Mujer Araña. Directed by Harold Prince, the musical had runs in the West End (1992) and Broadway (1993) and won the 1993 Tony Award for Best Musical.
Kander and Ebb were a highly successful American songwriting team consisting of composer John Kander and lyricist Fred Ebb. Known primarily for their stage musicals, which include Cabaret and Chicago, Kander and Ebb also scored several movies, including Martin Scorsese's New York, New York. Their most famous song is the theme song of that movie. Recorded by many artists, "New York, New York" became a signature song for Frank Sinatra. The team also became associated with two actresses, Liza Minnelli and Chita Rivera, for whom they wrote a considerable amount of material for the stage, concerts and television.
John Harold Kander is the American composer of a number of musicals as part of the songwriting team of Kander and Ebb. His best-known stage musicals as composer are Cabaret and Chicago, both of which were later adapted into films.
Fred Ebb was an American musical theatre lyricist who had many successful collaborations with composer John Kander. The Kander and Ebb team frequently wrote for such performers as Liza Minnelli and Chita Rivera.
Cabaret is a 1972 American musical drama film directed by Bob Fosse, and starring Liza Minnelli, Michael York, and Joel Grey.
The Boy from Oz is a jukebox musical based on the life of singer and songwriter Peter Allen, featuring songs written by him. The original book is by Nick Enright, with a revised book by Martin Sherman. Premiering in Australia in 1998 starring Todd McKenney, the musical opened in a revised version on Broadway in 2003 with Hugh Jackman in the title role.
Susan P. Stroman is an American theatre director, choreographer, film director and performer. She is a five-time Tony Award winner, four for Best Choreography and one as Best Director of a Musical for The Producers. In 2005, she directed the film version of The Producers.
New York, New York is a 1977 American musical drama film directed by Martin Scorsese and written by Mardik Martin and Earl Mac Rauch based on a story by Rauch. It is a musical tribute, featuring new songs by John Kander and Fred Ebb as well as jazz standards, to Scorsese's home town of New York City, and stars Robert De Niro and Liza Minnelli as a pair of musicians and lovers. The story is "about a jazz saxophonist and a pop singer (Minnelli) who fall madly in love and marry"; however, the "saxophonist's outrageously volatile personality places a continual strain on their relationship, and after they have a baby, their marriage crumbles", even as their careers develop on separate paths. The film marked the final screen appearance of actor Jack Haley.
The Act is a musical with a book by George Furth, lyrics by Fred Ebb, and music by John Kander.
Wayne Louis Cilento is an American director and choreographer. He is best known for originating the role of Mike in the Broadway show A Chorus Line, and later becoming one of Broadway's most prolific choreographers.
The 50th Annual Tony Awards was broadcast by CBS from the Majestic Theatre on June 2, 1996. Nathan Lane was the host.
The 38th Annual Tony Awards were held on June 3, 1984, at the Gershwin Theatre and broadcast by CBS television. Hosts were Julie Andrews and Robert Preston.
The 28th Annual Tony Awards ceremony was held on April 21, 1974, at the Shubert Theatre in New York City, and broadcast by ABC television. Hosts were Peter Falk, Florence Henderson, Robert Preston and Cicely Tyson. The theme was "Homecoming", where stars from TV and film returned to Broadway to help present the awards or perform.
The 46th Annual Tony Awards was broadcast by CBS from the Gershwin Theatre on May 31, 1992. The host was Glenn Close.
The 37th Annual Tony Awards was held at the Gershwin Theatre on June 5, 1983, and broadcast by CBS television. Hosts were Richard Burton, Lena Horne, and Jack Lemmon.
The 32nd Annual Tony Awards was broadcast by CBS television on June 4, 1978, from the Shubert Theatre in New York City. This was the first time that CBS broadcast the ceremony, which had previously been shown on the ABC television network.
Liza's at the Palace.... was a concert presented by Liza Minnelli at the Palace Theatre on Broadway from December 3, 2008 through January 4, 2009. It was produced by John Scher and Metropolitan Talent Presents.
The 63rd Annual Tony Awards, which recognized Broadway productions of the 2008-2009 season, were presented on June 7, 2009 at Radio City Music Hall in New York City. The ceremony was broadcast by CBS, with Neil Patrick Harris as host.
The 68th Annual Tony Awards were held June 8, 2014, to recognize achievement in Broadway productions during the 2013–14 season. The ceremony was held at Radio City Music Hall in New York City, and was televised live on CBS. Hugh Jackman was the host, his fourth time hosting. The 15 musical Tony Awards went to seven different musicals, and six plays shared the 11 play Tony Awards.
The Chita Rivera Awards for Dance and Choreography celebrate outstanding dance and choreography in theatre, both on Broadway and Off-Broadway and in film at an annual ceremony in New York City at the Skirball Center for the Performing Arts. Now carrying the namesake of two-time Tony-winning dance icon Chita Rivera, The Rivera Awards will be presented under the auspices of American Dance Machine, an organization dedicated to the preservation of great musical-theater choreography.
