The 2008 Tony Awards

Review By: Carey Purcell
CareyPurcell@TheCinemaSource.com

Photographs By: Rachel Schwartz

The 2008 Tony Awards were held on June 15 at Radio City Music Hall. The evening was a mixture of paying tribute to classic revivals as well as inventive new pieces. Walking the red carpet before the awards, the stars were excited and eager to see what the evening held.

Sierra Boggess, who made her Broadway debut as Ariel in The Little Mermaid this winter, described the feeling as “really, really amazing,” saying with a broad smile, “I’m so excited!”

Many members of the cast of In the Heights were walking the red carpet, including Lin Manuel-Miranda, the author and star of the multi-nominated musical. Decked out in a classic black tuxedo, he described the evening as feeling “surreal.”

“What I compare it to is like having a kid and it growing up,” the 28-year old said of the show’s long journey to Broadway, which he began writing in college. “It’s very gradual and natural for me, but my friends are like, ‘Holy crap, you’re kidding!”

Priscilla Lopez, also from the cast of In the Heights, was not surprised by the show’s successful transfer from off-Broadway to Broadway this spring. “I just assumed it was coming!” she said. “How could it not?”

Other performers did feel surprise at the nominations they received. Kerry Butler, currently starring in Xanadu and nominated for Best Actress, knew that her show was good, but said “never in a million years” would she have expected to receive a nomination for the show.

In the media room, following the awards, many of the winners still seemed surprised. Stew, author of Passing Strange and recipient of the Best Book of a Musical, said, it was “incredibly insane’ to be in the winner's room at the Tony Awards.

Fame, however, was never Stew’s goal. “My intention was just to write a good show…to try to mount a show that would be true to the kind of music people actually listen to, as opposed to the music people listen to when they actually go to the theater. To put music onstage that people are listening to on their IPODs on the street and on the subway…when they’re at home getting stoned or at a party.”

Rondi Reed, who received the award for Best Featured Actress in a Play for her work in August: Osage County, had said her plans for New York were to win the Tony Award and go back to performing in Wicked in Chicago. “Never in a million years would I have dreamed it would happen,” she said. “New York has given me a huge Valentine in my career and in my life.”

Bartlett Sherr, director of South Pacific, said while preparing for the show he felt completely panicked. “Every single place I went, all I heard was that was the greatest musical…we felt like we mostly could only fail.” He spent 15-18 months preparing the show and was surprised by the ...