Top 25 special Tony Awards of all time
The musical “Hell’s Kitchen” and the drama “Stereophonic” are leading the nominations with 13 followed closely by the musical “The Outsiders” with 12 for the 77th annual Tony Awards which will be telecast live from Lincoln Center June 16 on Pluto and CBS. The ceremony hosted for the third consecutive year by Oscar-winner Ariana DeBose will also hand out several special Tony Awards.
Two powerhouse directors (and previous Tony winners), George C. Wolfe and Jack O’Brien, are set to receive special Tony Award for Lifetime Achievement in the Theatre. Other special honors will go to sound designer Abe Jacobs, Alex Edelman for his one-man show “Just for Us,” and Nikiya Mathis for her hair and wig design for the Tony nominated “Jaja’s African Hair Braiding.” Among those receiving Tonys for excellence in the theater are the Dramatist Guild Foundation, the Samuel J. Friedman Heath Center for the Performing Arts and the Wilma Theater.
Over the years, Barbra Streisand, Elaine Stritch, Bruce Springsteen and Billy Crystal have earned non-competitive Tonys. With the Tonys just around the corner, let’s look back at some of the most interesting winners of these honors.
Arthur Miller won a special Tony at the first awards in 1947 for “All My Sons,” and so did Mr. and Mrs. Ira Katzenberg, who were honored for “enthusiasm as inveterate first nighters.” Vincent Sardi Sr. was also recipient at the ceremony for “providing a transient home and comfort station for theatre folk at Sardi’s for twenty years.”
George Pierce certainly isn’t a household name, but he was beloved at the Empire Theater. He received a special award at the second annual Tonys for “25 years of courteous and efficient service as a backstage doorman.” That same year Mary Martin (“Annie Get Your Gun”) and Joe E. Brown (“Harvey”) were honored for “spreading theatre to the country while the originals perform in New York.”
Stage technician Joe Lynn was singled out in the fourth awards for being a “master property man” on “Miss Liberty” while Eleanor Roosevelt presented volunteer worker Philip Faversham of the American Theatre Wing’s hospital program.
Judy Garland was the recipient of a special Tony in 1952 for “an important contribution to the revival of vaudeville through her recent stint at the Palace Theatre,” while Charles Boyer earned his Tony for his “distinguished performance in ‘Don Juan from Hell’ thereby assisting in a new theatre trend.”
Laurence Olivier was on hand in 1969 to accept a special Tony for the National Theatre Company of Great Britain; Olivier was director of the company. The Negro Theatre Ensemble also receive a Tony that year, as well as Leonard Bernstein, Carol Burnett and Rex Harrison.
The great artist Al Hirschfeld picked up a special award in 1975 for 50 years of theatrical cartoons.
First Lady of the Theatre Helen Hayes, who earned two competitive Tony Awards, received the Lawrence Langner Memorial Award for Distinguished Lifetime Achievement in the American Theatre in 1980 and Mary Tyler Moore also received a special honor for appearing in “Whose Life Is It Anyway?” playing a role originally written for a man.
Chicago’s renowned Steppenwolf Theatre Company, whose members have included the likes of John Malkovich and Gary Sinise, were the recipients of the Regional Theatre Award in 1985.
Special awards have been quite emotional. In 1985, Yul Brynner, who won the featured actor in a musical Tony in 1952 for “The King and I,” received a special Tony for “honoring his 4,525 performances” in the classic. Brynner, who was suffering from cancer, gave his final performance in the musical in the Broadway revival on June 30, 1985. The Associated Press wrote: “During a five-minute curtain call, the audience stood, and the orchestra played ‘Auld Lang Syne.’ It was a legendary moment in the history of musical theater.” Brynner died that October at the age of 65.
And in 1994, husband and wife Jessica Tandy and Hume Cronyn, no strangers to competitive Tonys, earned their special achievement award. The standing ovation for the couple, who had been married over 50 years, was long and loud. The emotional Tandy, who was battling cancer, was noticeably thin and frail that evening. “It is something I shall treasure,” she said of the honor. “I am particularly grateful for the opportunity to step once more upon the stage” Cronyn added “I certainly wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for the lady on my right. Tandy died that September at the age of 85.
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