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© Anita and Steve Shevett |
By DAVID LEFKOWITZ
Playbill Online -- April 20, 2000
It will be a couple of killers at the podium on May 8, when the Tony nominations for the 1999-2000 season are announced. Presiding over the event, to take place at Sardi's, will be Bebe Neuwith and Kelsey Grammer. Neuwith has played Chicago's merry murderess Velma Kelly off and on for the past three years (winning a Tony for the role), while Grammer is due on Broadway this summer as Macbeth.
The two are, perhaps, a little better known as television couple Frasier Crane and Lilith Sternin, of "Cheers" and "Frasier."
Also to be present at the announcement will be American Theatre Wing President Roy A. Somlyo, ATW Chair Isabelle Stevenson, League of American Theaters and Producers President Jed Bernstein, and League Chairman Cy Feuer.
The Tony ceremony will air on June 4.
By RANDY GENER
Theater.com -- May 31, 2000
Morning was electric about half an hour before the 2000 Tony Award® nominations were announced Monday, May 8. Sardi's Restaurant was already buzzing with theater folk. The air was filled with a mixture of excitement, nervousness, and anxious anticipation.
Broadway producers showed up to find out if their respective shows made a strong impression with the Tony nominating committee. Press agents and marketing people came prepared to count the number of nominations the shows they represent would receive so that they could launch a full-fledged ad campaign.
Theatre critics came to hear Bebe Neuwirth and Kelsey Grammer announce this year's Tony Award nominees live. Broadcast journalists tested their microphones and their makeup. New media and old media reporters rewound their tape recorders and positioned themselves so that they could pounce on the two stars after the nominations were made.
The photographers had already located their places on a dais in front of the rostrum where Neuwirth and Grammer were to appear. Others just came to watch, or to have free orange juice, coffee and croissants, courtesy of Sardi's Restaurant.
Anyone who was somebody -- or thought they were somebody -- woke up early in the morning and came to see and be seen. Everyone, that is, except for the nominees themselves. They were most likely having breakfast at home, or asleep on their day off, or hooking up their computer browsers to check out the official Tony Awards website. "It's undeniable that the Tony Awards has an effect on the long-run lives of Broadway shows," said Jed Bernstein, president of the League of American Theatres and Producers. "It's hard to quantify that effect. Maybe the truest thing to say is that the mere fact that people think that there's an effect, in fact, makes it true. The marketing decisions you make, the decisions you make about where to run the show and the length of the run, all of this seem to relate so strongly to the Tonys that it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy."
It's difficult to gauge, however, how the simple fact of being nominated can determine the life of a show. "Certainly the Tonys are famous for bringing about prolonged runs. Titanic, comes to mind. Annie Get Your Gun got a big boost. On the other hand, a lot of nominations don't guarantee anything. Think of Steel Pier. It had ten nominations and walked away with none and closed soon."
Perhaps more entertaining than the spectacle of seeing Neuwirth and Grammer read off the list of this year's nominees was the comedy surrounding the utterance of the cursed word "Macbeth."
Theatre superstition forbids uttering of the word out loud, especially inside a theatre. Instead, pros just call it "the Scottish play."
Neuwirth happily explained the source of the superstition. "I think it was Roger Rees who told me this," she said. "When a theatre company was doing badly (they were losing money in sales), the troupe would bring the Scottish play on and stage it because it's a big crowd pleaser. In Shakespeare's play, there's a lot of violence. There's a lot of blood. There's lots of battle and action. And there's all sort of psychotic characters. Saying the title is a curse because it means that a particular theatre season would be failing, and the play had to used to save the producer's or the general manager's season."
Grammer is expected to open next month in a new Broadway production of Macbeth in which he costars with Diane Venora.
"It's actually a good luck play for me," Grammer said. "I am going to return to Broadway now because of it."
But before returning to the boards, Grammer needed to get through the morning's affairs. The two actors, who co-starred in TV's Cheers but have never performed together on stage, shared a platform to read off the nominees.
Unlike Neuwirth, a Broadway denizen who has spent a lot of time on New York stages, Grammer seemed not to be so familiar with the names of Broadway personalities. He apologized profusely when he mispronounced a couple of names (Michael John LaChiusa's, for instance), while Neuwirth quipped, "He went to Juilliard."
"It was embarrassing," Grammer said. "It's a horrible thing to mispronounce the name of someone, especially since he got nominated a lot."
But all in all, the whole affair was done with good humor and friendly bantering.
"It always feels good to work with Bebe because we always work well together," Grammer said. "I was asked to announce the Tony nominees when I was in an Oscar party in Los Angeles. I said, 'Sure.' I am actually flattered to be asked. This is where I started out as an actor. The theatre is the most challenging arena for an actor, more than anything else. This is where we have the most control. That's the real problem for us control freaks anyway. You can give an unexpurgated performance and have it not be edited."
"I love Kelsey," Neuwirth added, "and I'm so happy he's coming back to the theatre, even for this brief time. I think he's a great stage actor. And I can't wait for him to come back and do more."
As for the job of announcing this year's nominees, Neuwirth said that it's just one of those theatre-related affairs that she frequently get invited to do, particularly when she's not working on a show.
"It is a real thrill," she said. "I love to give presents. Doing this is a heightened version of giving away presents. It's an honor to be asked to do this today."
Unlike Grammer who just flew in from Los Angeles to tackle rehearsals for Macbeth, Neuwirth had a chance to take in some Broadway shows herself.
"I haven't seen the whole season, but I was very pleased to see some of my friends on that list. I am happy to see Karen Ziemba was nominated. There's Lee Wilkof and Kathleen Marshall. I'm a big fan of Marin Mazzie, so I am happy to see her there. Also I think The Green Bird is a brilliant theatre piece. I am very happy to see one of its actors, Derek Smith, nominated because he is brilliant in a fantastic production. It really deserves to run a long time. People should see it. So far what I've seen have been great. I'm just happy there's so much on variety on Broadway right now."
Meanwhile, Neuwirth might have to whip Grammer into theatrical shape, since he freely spoke that cursed title of a certain Shakespeare play and almost -- almost -- quoted a line from the play.
"I can tell you what you're supposed to do if you say that cursed word," Neuwirth averred. "You're supposed to send that person out of the room. They have to turn around three times, spit on the floor and say a certain four-letter word that starts with an 's.' And then they have to knock on the door and ask to be let back in. There's a lot of that going on today."
All photos are © by Anita and Steve Shevett and are courtesy of Tonys.org. Click on the pictures for a larger image.
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