Steppenwolf's 'August' dominates Tony Awards
On a hot July afternoon last year, a shiver went up the collective spine of the audience attending the opening of Steppenwolf Theatre's "August: Osage County." It was the delicious quiver that tells you you've witnessed something special. New York City felt it too, last fall, when Tracy Letts' Pulitzer Prize-winning dysfunctional family drama transferred to Broadway, weathered the stagehands strike, and received as many accolades there as it had in its Chicago premiere and earned a Pulitzer Prize.
Monday the stars that began aligning 11 months ago converged into a brilliant constellation as "August" received five Tony Awards (second only to Bartlett Sher's acclaimed revival of "South Pacific" which won seven). Among them was an award for Letts for best play, who, referring to the cast and crew that accompanied him on stage to accept his Tony, quipped: "I don't know all these people. I assume they're associated with the play."
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He thanked Chicago's theater community in a witty and succinct speech that included subtle digs at Broadway's fondness for Euro-drama and credibility-seeking Hollywood stars whose Broadway stints prove less than impressive.
"They decided to produce an American play on Broadway with theater actors," he said, adding, "I see some of you are theater actors, too."
"August" director Anna D. Shapiro delivered perhaps the most heartfelt and eloquent speech of the night accepting her directing Tony, with an homage to her artistic home and her parents who "never made me feel like there was anything trivial in this job."
"The only way you get to have a life in the theater is if somewhere in your life you come upon a group of people who, although they don't need to, make room for you. And if you're lucky that group of people is the Steppenwolf Theater Company in Chicago. And if you're really followed by a star, Tracy Letts hands you 'August: Osage County' and says, 'Wanna?' And heaven opens up and you get the greatest cast you will work with in your entire life."
The last comment elicited a tear from Rondi Reed, who received a Tony for featured actress in a play (a category that also included fellow ensemble members Laurie Metcalf and Martha Plimpton) for her performance as the brassy, booze-swilling Mattie Fae.
"It's about families for us," said Reed, an unexpected but deserved winner, who thanked her Steppenwolf, New York and "Wicked" families (Reed did an extended stint as Madame Morrible in Chicago's long-running production) and her brilliant and overlooked cast-mate "Francis Guinan, who I give 80 percent of my award to every night," and to lead actress nominee Amy Morton.
As expected, Deanna Dunagan, who NYC has buzzed about since "August" opened, won the Tony for lead actress in a play.
"None of us dreamed we would be here, I certainly didn't after 34 years in regional theater," she said. "But Tracy Letts wrote a brilliant American play #8230; and Chicago theater-goers ate it up and made it a hit."
She graciously recognized fellow nominee Amy Morton, "who should at the very least be standing up here with me, and can do things on stage that I can't do."
"August's" dominance was apparent early. In a Web cast prior to the CBS broadcast (during which the regional Tony was presented to Chicago Shakespeare Theater's founder and artistic director Barbara Gaines), Todd Resenthal picked up the Tony for set design.
In addition to Sher's directing award for "South Pacific" which he dedicated to "extraordinary American artists Rodgers and Hammerstein, James Michener and Josh Logan, "who taught me I wasn't just an artist, but a citizen" and "that our country was a great place, perhaps it could be a little better and perhaps we could change." The show also received Tonys for revival, lead actor Paulo Szot, set, sound, costume and lighting.
Arthur Laurents' revival of Jule Styne and Stephen Sondheim's "Gypsy" took the top acting honors including featured actress and actor awards for Laura Benanti and Boyd Gaines and a best actress Tony for star Patti LuPone (whose involvement in the show began with a 2006 semi-staged production at the Ravinia Festival), who held up her award saying, "it's such a wonderful gift to be an actor who makes her living working on the Broadway stage and every 30 years or so, picks up one of these" and admonished the orchestra's attempt to play her off the stage with "Shut up, it's been 28 years."
The most original and entertaining speeches came courtesy of 28-year-old composer/lyricist Lin-Manuel Miranda of the rap-tastic "In The Heights," whose hip-hop acceptance for his Tony Award-winning score included a shout-out to Stephen Sondheim followed by a Sondheim quip: "I made a hat where there never was a hat, and it's a Latin hat at that."
Speaking of Sondheim, the composer accepted his lifetime achievement Tony via a typically eloquent statement read by Mandy Patinkin in which he acknowledged "the more venerable you get the harder it becomes to avoid the fear of not living up to the expectation and praise bestowed upon you" and promised "more achievement."