Five-time Tony Award winner Angela Lansbury, who plays Madame Armfeldt in the current Broadway revival of A Little Night Music, will receive the Arlington, Virginia-based Signature Theatre's 2010 Stephen Sondheim Award. The award, established in honor of America's most influential contemporary musical theater writer and composer, will now be presented to Lansbury at a black-tie gala dinner at the Embassy of Italy in Washington, DC. on April 12 (as opposed to the previously announced April 26).

Catherine Zeta-Jones and Bernadette Peters serve as Honorary Hosts for the gala, which will benefit Signature Theatre's artistic, education, and community outreach programs.

Sondheim says in a press statement, "Angela Lansbury's first appearance on the musical stage was in a show called Anyone Can Whistle, for which I wrote the score. That appearance was a gift to the musical theater, although perhaps not such a gift to her, since the show only ran for nine performances. I am thrilled that Signature Theatre is helping me make it up to her by giving her the first Stephen Sondheim Award."

Lansbury won Tony Awards for her performances in Sweeney Todd, Mame, Dear World, Gypsy, and, most recently, Blithe Spirit. She may be best known as Jessica Fletcher from television's Murder, She Wrote, for which she won four Golden Globe Awards.

Individual tickets for the gala start at $650. For more information, call 571-527-1828. For more information, visit www.signature-theatre.org.