South Pacific wins 7 Tonys
2008-06-17 10:02
New York - Rodgers and
Hammerstein's South Pacific dominated Broadway's top honours,
the Tony Awards, with seven prizes on Sunday, followed by the
Pulitzer Prize-winning play August: Osage County with five
wins.
South Pacific, nominated for 11 Tonys, picked up awards
for best musical revival, best musical director (Bartlett
Sher), best leading actor in a musical (Paulo Szot), scenery,
costume, lighting and sound.
Sher said audiences seemed to find contemporary resonance
in the show's themes of racial tension at a time of war -
issues of heightened interest in the US presidential election
campaign with black candidate Sen Barack Obama winning the
Democratic nomination.
"The reception was completely overwhelming," Sher told
reporters, adding the show happened "to hit this weird crease
in the culture around the election".
Best play
August: Osage County, the Tracy Letts play that won the
Pulitzer Prize for drama this year, won Tonys for best play,
best featured actress (Rondi Reed), best leading actress
(Deanna Dunagan), scenic design and direction (Anna D
Shapiro).
Cast members signalled that the sprawling drama about a
dysfunctional family in rural Oklahoma could transfer to
London's West End later this year.
Broadway veteran Patti LuPone won best actress in a musical
for her role in Gypsy, while her co-stars won best featured
actor (Boyd Gaines) and featured actress (Laura Benanti).
The show is a revival of a musical suggested by a
stripper's memoir with Stephen Sondheim lyrics.
It was the
second Tony for LuPone, who last won for Evita.
"Shut up, it's been 29 years," she yelled as the orchestra
began playing at New York City's Radio City Hall.
"It's such a wonderful gift to be an actor who makes her
living on the Broadway stage and then once every 30 years or so
pick up one of these."
Best book of a musical
Rock musician Stew, whose real name is Mark Stewart, won
best book of a musical for Passing Strange, the show's single
award from seven nominations.
"It's incredibly insane to be up here," he told reporters.
"Our goal was to put music on stage that people are actually
listening to, the music people actually listen to on subways or
when at they're at home getting stoned."
In the Heights, a musical about a largely Dominican
northern Manhattan neighbourhood, won four awards, including
best original score for creator and star Lin-Manuel Miranda. It
had led the Tony nominations with 13.
"I used to dream about this moment, now I'm in it,"
Miranda, 28, who thought up the show during his second year in
college and worked on it for eight years, said in a speech he
rapped to the crowd. "I wrote a little show about home."
Boeing-Boeing, the classic farce which is the most
performed French play, won best revival of a play.
The Tony Awards were established in 1947 and are named for
Antoinette Perry, whose nickname was Toni.
Perry, who died in
1946, was an actress, stage director and philanthropist who was
a founder of the American Theatre Wing.
Sondheim
Around 750 people from the theatre industry - from actors,
to directors to journalists - vote for the Tony Awards.
Sondheim, who wrote music and lyrics for such shows as A
Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum and Sweeney
Todd was given a special Tony for lifetime achievement.
Broadway shows would have set box office and attendance
records for the 12 months to May 25 2008, if there had not
been a 19-day stagehand strike in November over a new contract
with theatre owners and producers, according to the industry.
Theatregoers were treated to 36 new productions - 13
musicals and 23 plays. Paid attendance fell 0.2% from
the previous year to 12.27 million tickets, while shows grossed
$937.5m, down from 2006/07's record of $938.5m.