Tony Telecasts

The 42nd Annual Tony Awards were held on June 5, 1998 at Broadway’s Minskoff Theatre and hosted by Angela Lansbury, at that time a four-time Tony Award winner for Best Actress in a Musical. Heading into the ceremony there were three shows tied for the most nominations: Into the Woods, The Phantom of the Opera and the Patti LuPone-helmed Lincoln Center revival of Anything Goes. The season’s other two nominated new musicals, Romance/Romance and Sarafina! Both had five nominations. Also in the pack for Best Revival is a Joel Grey-led revival of Cabaret.

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The 52nd Annual Tony Awards were held on June 7, 1998 at Radio City Music Hall. Hosted by Rosie O’Donnell for the second year in a row, 

Going into the ceremony, Ragtime led the pack with 13 nominations, followed by The Lion King with 11. The acclaimed Roundabout Theatre Company revival had 10 nominations, with Side Show and The Scarlet Pimpernel as new musicals, and 1776 and The Sound of Music as revivals.

A lot of things happened during the season, many of which were covered in all the politically-skewed humor of the telecast. President Bill Clinton was in his second term in office, and by the time of this broadcast he was elbow-deep in the Monica Lewinsky scandal, with impeachment talks just around the corner. Also referenced as a joke in the telecast, 1998 brought upon the advent of Viagra, which was approved by the FDA in March of that year. LOL.

In New York, this season also marks the “Disneyfication” of Broadway, where in a partnership of Disney, LiveEnt, and The New 42nd St. Inc, transformed Times Square from the seedy, sketchy neighborhood history knew it to be, to the child-friendly, glamorous tourist-trap we know it is today. This season also boasted the opening of 35 Broadway productions, and notably this was the year that Cats surpassed A Chorus Line as the longest running show on Broadway. Meow.

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After two years at New York’s Beacon Theatre, the 2013 Tonys were broadcast live from Radio City Music Hall. From the moment the nominations were announced, the ceremony seemed destined to be a showdown between Kinky Boots and Matilda The Musical, with revivals of Pippin, Rodgers & Hammerstein’s CInderella and The Mystery of Edwin Drood following close behind. 

Hosted by Neil Patrick Harris, the ceremony featured one of the most lauded openings in Tony Awards History, titled “Bigger.” Written by Lin-Manuel Miranda and Tom Kitt and featuring the iconic line “We were that kid,” “Bigger’ featured more than a hundred Broadway performers and eventually won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Music and Lyrics.

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After two years at New York’s Beacon Theatre, the 2013 Tonys were broadcast live from Radio City Music Hall. From the moment the nominations were announced, the ceremony seemed destined to be a showdown between Kinky Boots and Matilda The Musical, with revivals of Pippin, Rodgers & Hammerstein’s CInderella and The Mystery of Edwin Drood following close behind. 

Hosted by Neil Patrick Harris, the ceremony featured one of the most lauded openings in Tony Awards History, titled “Bigger.” Written by Lin-Manuel Miranda and Tom Kitt and featuring the iconic line “We were that kid,” “Bigger’ featured more than a hundred Broadway performers and eventually won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Music and Lyrics.

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The 45th Annual Tony Awards were held on June 2, 1991. They were broadcast on CBS from the Minskoff Theatre and hosted by Julie Andrews and Jeremy Irons. The telecast featured performances from the four nominated musicals: Miss Saigon, Once on This Island, The Secret Garden and The Will Rogers Follies. It also included a special salute to ‘The Year of the Musical Actor’ featuring Robert Morse, Topol, Ann Reinking, Michael Crawford and more.

Leading up to the award ceremony, Miss Saigon and The Will Rogers Follies were tied for the most nominations of the season, with 11 each. But it was The Will Rogers Follies that walked away with six wins (Musical, Score, Choreography, Direction, Costume, Lighting). Miss Saigon and The Secret Garden both received three wins (Jonathan Pryce, Lea Salonga, Hinton Battle), (Book, Daisy Eagan, Scenic) while the fourth nominee for Best Musical, Once On This Island, walked away empty handed.

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Welcome listeners to a new mini-series, bringing you all the drama behind the drama of a theatre season in Broadway history. In each podcast episode, we will watch a Tony telecast and then delve to the theatre season.

We will each have the following week to research the season as a whole and then bring you our most surprising findings about how the telecast did and didn’t reflect the year on Broadway. 

To join us for our first Tonys recap, be sure to watch the 1991 Tony Awards.

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