Someone on the Stage

Once again, I felt like the Old Man in Pacific Overtures — the fellow who was someone in a tree and struggled to hear the Treaty of Kanagawa being signed. When I emcee the Theatre World Awards, held this year at Studio 54 on Monday afternoon, I step back after introducing each presenter (who, in turn, introduces each winner) and so I don’t always hear everything that everyone is saying.

Our selection committee usually gives out prizes to 12 performers who’ve made their New York debuts during the season. This year, though, we bestowed 13 — for whenever we see a performer who not only stars in a show, but writes it, too, we like to give a special award. And we got someone special to give it: the First Lady of the American Musical Theater. Bernadette Peters presented to Sarah Jones for her tour-de-force work in Bridge & Tunnel. I could tell that Sarah wittily invoked her Long Island character to do the accepting for her but, alas, I couldn’t make out what she said — so I’m really glad to have seen her show. Every day when I turn on WINS-1010 News, I hear the traffic reports say that they offer “the bridge and tunnel guarantee.”
Well, my Bridge & Tunnel guarantee is that if you go to see Sarah Jones, you’ll have a terrific time.

I did hear Audra McDonald say that, over the years, she’d been told how much she resembled Hollywood starlet Sanaa Lathan — so she hoped the lady would stay in Hollywood so she could keep working on Broadway. McDonald admitted her
apprehension when she learned that they’d be playing in-laws in A Raisin in the Sun but said that she now felt as if she had a sister for life. What I also heard was the sound of the award crashing to the floor after Lathan and McDonald hugged each other so hard that Lathan dropped it. It didn’t break — which caused one wag to remark, during the party afterwards at Nadine’s in the West Village, “If that had happened to a Tony, the plastic would have split apart.” Speaking of Tonys, Viola Davis mentioned (I think) that her Theatre World Award meant more to her than her Tony because she got ours first and it
encouraged her. (I would hear that statement echoed several times as the event unfolded.) Davis presented to I Am My Own Wife’s Jefferson Mays, who got quite a few laughs, but darn if I know what the jokes were. Yet I did hear him thank his “two other wives, [director] Moisés Kaufman and [playwright] Doug Wright.”

Michael Cerveris mentioned that he had once worked with Paul Gemignani and had heard the musical director extraordinaire talk glowingly about his talented son. Now, Cerveris said, he knew that talk to be true because Alexander Gemignani is playing John Hinckley to his John Wilkes Booth in Assassins. Cerveris also said that he didn’t just feel that Gemignani was talented but that he wanted to have the guy as a friend for life; Gemignani returned the compliment.

Did I hear Raúl Esparza, in presenting to Taboo castmate Euan Morton, allude to the “anxiety” that surrounded the show while insisting that it didn’t extend to his appreciation of the Morton? I know I heard Morton say that he recognized so many people in the crowd because he’d worked at Tower Records in London in the show music department and had sold CDs featuring the performances of many of those present. Then I heard him
say something I wish he hadn’t: He referred to cast albums as soundtracks! Several attendees of the party afterwards told me that they had expected me to chastise Morton on the spot, but I took the high road.

Lonny Price said that he felt old because he won his Theatre World Award in 1979, while so many others — McDonald, Davis, Esparza, Cerveris — had won in the ’90s. I’ll have to call, correct and console him for actually won in 1980, albeit for his performance in a play that opened in late 1979. Because Price appeared in The Muppets Take Manhattan, I’d decided that he should present to the stars of Avenue Q. John Tartaglia said he grew up feeling that his purpose was to be an actor and a puppeteer, but when he had accomplished the latter goal by getting a job on Sesame Street, he conveniently forgot about his other aim — “until I went to see Les Misérables and bawled. I started sending out my picture and résumé the next day.” Tartaglia’s co-star, Stephanie D’Abruzzo, got the biggest laugh of the ceremony when she stated that this was the first award she’d won since she was named Burger King Employee of the Month.

Alice Playten presented to her castmate Anika Noni Rose, who’s a bit older than I expected her to be. (She’s only 20, but the wonderful performance the lass gives in Caroline, or Change made me assume that she was a child.) While I couldn’t hear everything from where I was standing, I could see something the audience couldn’t: Rose was so thrilled with the honor that, while standing at the podium, she kept flexing her right leg backwards in glee.

La Chanze presented to Shannon Cochran, who said that she was proud to represent Off-Broadway. (It’s true; not counting shows that transferred to Broadway from other venues, she was the only one off the Main Stem who took home a prize this year, for what she does in Bug.) Cochran also remarked that she had been scared coming from Hollywood and dealing with New Yorkers but that we turned out to be an encouraging bunch. Now, that was worth hearing.

Wonderful Town’s Michael McGrath said that he loves it when each volume of Theatre World comes out because he immediately goes to the back of the book, notes how long he hasn’t been working, and then checks to see if he has any unemployment pay coming to him. I also heard him joke that, because his castmate Jennifer Westfeldt comes from the world of film, she wants to have a wrap party after every performance. When Westfeldt came to the stage, she was so soft-spoken that I heard nothing she said — and, given that this is the woman who co-wrote Kissing Jessica Stein, I’m sure I missed some choice material.

The hardest workin’ man at the ceremony was The Boy from Oz‘s Jarrod Emick, who presented three trophies. Emick joked that everyone in the cast hated Mitchel David Federan because the kid’s so talented. The 12-year-old showed that he already has quite a bit of class when, in accepting his award, he took the time to thank the back stage crew at Oz. Isabel Keating, who portrays Judy Garland in the show, had to do double duty in accepting not only her own award but also Hugh Jackman’s. (He had some movie business to attend to.) She read a speech that he’d penned in which he wittily mentioned that, as a teen, he had longed to get into Studio 54 — and now he couldn’t make it there even though he had been invited!

Before we adjourned, I mentioned that the Theatre World Awards had lost a wonderful friend this year. She used to come to the ceremony most every year and would always convulse the house with her terrific wit. Of course, I had to come up with a brand new introduction for her annually, and that became a challenge. Two years ago, I wrote one that I thought would be ideal. The lady agreed to present but, two days before the ceremony, she had a family emergency and had to cancel. Last year, I was so thrilled when she was cast in a high-profile show, figuring: “Good! I’ve got my introduction ready.” But she fell ill and had to drop out of the play — and then she died. I wanted to give my introduction in remembrance, and so I did:

“A long-run show is considered to be one that ran over 500 performances. Many performers have starred in long-run plays, many in long-run musicals. But how many people have been the stars of both? Only four. There was Judy Holliday, Lauren Bacall, Matthew Broderick. [I didn’t mention that since I wrote the introduction, Harvey Fierstein has done it, too.] And then there was the woman who played Dottie Otley in Noises Off and, of course, Miss Hannigan in
Annie. Ladies and gentlemen, Miss Dorothy Loudon.”

Oh, how moved I was when everyone stood and applauded wildly. That ovation was very easy to hear.

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[To contact Peter Filichia directly, e-mail him at pfilichia@aol.com]