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What Are the Tony Awards Named After?

After a troublesome 12 months of misery and delay, the Tony Awards ceremony is again with its 74th annual ceremony honoring the greatest in American theater’s musicals, performs, and revivals. Broadway is formally again, however earlier than the trophies are handed out, discover out extra about the extraordinary lady for whom theater’s most coveted prize was named.

On stage at the 2018 Tony Awards. The 74th Annual Tony Awards airs Sunday Sept. 26, 2021 on CBS and Paramount+ |
John Paul Filo/CBS through Getty Photos

Broadway is again

The 74th annual Tony Awards will air Sept. 26 on CBS and Paramount+. Internet hosting the ceremony can be six-time Tony winner Audra McDonald and Leslie Odom Jr., who took house the 2016 Tony for Greatest Actor in a Musical for his portrayal of Aaron Burr in the musical Hamilton.

McDonald, in a dialog with Odom, informed Interview her recollection of the jarring and abrupt halt to theater, and life, in 2020.

“March 13 was the big shutdown day,” McDonald stated. “I did one very socially distanced concert in Aspen. It was the longest that I’d paused in a while. I’m lucky to be able to say that. And honestly, besides the fear and panic we were all feeling, I was so worried about my friends and our colleagues in this business, starting to see them pack up and leave town because they couldn’t afford to stay.”

Of Broadway’s return, Odom stated, “I don’t think it’s going to be easy. It’s going to take a second for people to have different hiring practices, and a different way we speak in these rooms, but I think we’re going to rise to the occasion.”

Actor, producer, and director Antoinette Perry was the namesake for the theater award

The Tony Awards are named for the pioneering theater actor and director Antoinette Perry, who opened doorways for different girls to steer on the stage. Perry was a star of the theater and labored with producer Brock Pemberton for many years. She finally went from appearing to directing performs together with Janie in 1942, Pillar to Put up in 1943, and 1944’s Pulitzer Prize-winning Harvey (which was tailored for movie in 1950 and starred James Stewart).

The actor and director helped set up the American Theatre Wing in the Forties, a corporation that partly offered leisure for serviceman overseas.

Perry died in 1946 and a 12 months after her demise, the American Theatre Wing created the annual Antoinette Perry Awards (affectionately nicknamed the Tonys) for excellence and achievement on the American stage.

Perry’s daughter recalled the ‘love’ of her mom’s life

In a 1998 dialog with Playbill, Perry’s daughter Margaret spoke of her mom’s ardour and devotion to the theater.

“There were other loves in mother’s life,” she defined, “but theatre was her first. Theatre was what she lived and breathed. If you were an actor, you were on that pedestal of pedestals.”

Her mom grew to become a star of the stage in her teenagers throughout the early 1900s. “Mother quickly rose from ingenue to leading lady, equally at home in comedy or the classics.”

Perry left theatrical work to boost her household at her husband’s insistence, Margaret revealed: “Mother’s literary and bohemian set clashed with father’s conservative lifestyle. When she became pregnant with me, father persuaded her to quit theatre to raise a family.”

After her husband’s 1922 demise, Perry returned to her old flame. “I’m making a fight for my very existence,” Perry was quoted as saying in an interview. “There’s no charm to a life of leisure. I yearn to return to my other love. Should I go on playing bridge and dining, going in the same old monotonous circle? It’s easy that way, but a sort of suicide, too.”

Watch the 74th annual Tony Awards Sunday Sept. 26 on CBS and Paramount+.



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