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Tag: 2014 tony awards

  • Sophie Okonedo “A Raisin In The Sun” Performance Wins Her A Tony Award

    Sophie Okonedo won her first Tony. She played opposite Denzel Washington in A Raisin in the Sun, and has claimed an award for her work. Although Okonedo has been working as an actress for years, the Tony she won is her first.

    If reviews of the show were anything to go by, Okonedo was an obvious pick. “She embraces every part of the character,” one critic said in the Washington Post. Concerning her character, Ruth, Okonedo explained “She’s quite tough, quite robust. She couldn’t be falling apart every second. She’d have to be trying to keep it together.”

    Broadway has been very kind to Okonedo. “If it’s always like this, you’re never going to get rid of me,” the actress told Playbill, speaking of her Broadway experience, “I am just loving every minute of it. If I had predicted what would happen, I couldn’t have predicted it. With this play, the joy I have of performing it, the incredible cast I’m with and then all of the accolades with it, it’s really unbelievable.”

    Okonedo beat out four other actresses for the Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Play: Mare Winningham in Casa Valentina, Sarah Greene in The Cripple of Inishmaan, Celia Keenan-Bolger in The Glass Menagerie, and Anika Noni Rose who was also in A Raisin in the Sun.

    What’s next for Okonedo? The Daily Mail reported she will take the role of Queen Margaret against Benedict Cumberbatch’s Richard III in the BBC’s miniseries The Hollow Crown. The project is the baby of Sam Mendes and will encompass William Shakespeare’s version of the War of the Roses.

    Image via YouTube, CBS.

  • Idina Menzel, Neil Patrick Harris to Perform at the Tony Awards

    Broadway will be taking center-stage in the entertainment industry in the coming weeks as excitement ramps up for this year’s Tony Awards. This year’s awards show will be hosted by Hugh Jackman, himself a Tony Award winner for his performance in 2004’s The Boy from Oz.

    Joining Jackman on stage will be many of Broadway’s biggest stars, who will perform for an audience of millions. Idina Menzel, Neil Patrick Harris, and Sting are just a few of the celebrities announced this week as performers for the 68th Annual Tony Awards.

    Highlighting this year’s show is Idina Menzel who will be performing a number from If/Then. Menzel has won two Tony Awards in the past: one in 1996 for her performance in Rent and one in 2004 for her role as Elphaba in Wicked. This year the actress is up for Best Leading Actress in a Musical for her role in If/Then.

    Post by Idina Menzel.

    Musician Sting will appear during the show with a song from his upcoming musical The Last Ship. Alan Cumming will take the stage in a number from Cabaret.

    Cast performances will also return as a feature of this year’s Tony Awards. Neil Patrick Harris, former host of the Tony Awards, will lead the cast of Hedwig and the Angry Inch in a musical performance. The cast of Wicked will also appear at the show to celebrate that musical’s 10th anniversary.

    In addition to the performances, the show will be packed with celebrities. Bradley Cooper, Will Ferrell, Kate Mara, Kevin Bacon, Clint Eastwood, Zach Braff, Patricia Clarkson, and many others will take the stage to announce winners.

    The 68th Annual Tony Awards will take place at Radio City Music Hall in New York City on June 8. The three-hour ceremony will be broadcast on CBS starting at 8 pm EDT.

    Image via the Tony Awards

  • Hugh Jackman Will Return To Broadway This Fall

    Hugh Jackman, the famous Aussie actor currently on a round of X-Men promotion, has already announced his next acting gig: Broadway. Jackman, 45, will return to Broadway this fall in “The River,” a play by Jez Butterworth that tells the story of a fisherman (Jackman) and a missing woman, set in a remote cabin by the water. The play is moving over to Broadway after a successful run at the Royal Court in London, which opened in 2012.

    The play starts previews on October 31st, with opening night slated for November 16th at the Circle in the Square theatre. One of the smallest Broadway theaters, Circle in the Square has only 775 seats, which will probably sell out nightly, due to Jackman. In addition, there’ll be at least 40 seats a night priced at only $35, making it more accessible. Sonia Friedman, Broadway producer for “The River,” understands that the smaller theatre and cheaper ticket prices limit the financial success of the play. She says, “I have seen plays and stars in theaters that are too big. It’s my job to protect Jez’s play. We could have easily gone to a 1,000-seat theater, but the work is too delicate. You need to feel you can touch the characters. You need to see the whites of their eyes. I know it sounds weird, but it’s the truth.”

    “The River” will be Hugh’s fourth time on Broadway; previously he’s appeared in “A Steady Rain,” “The Boy From Oz,” and in 2011, a special concert entitled “Hugh Jackman: Back on Broadway.” Jackman won the Tony Award from “The Boy From Oz” back in 2003, and returns to the Tonys again this summer as the award show’s host on June 8th. On hosting the awards, Jackman says, “I’ve done it three times, and for me it’s one of the best shows out there. It is one of the most accepting, generous audiences you can ever get; I never take for granted how lucky I am to be embraced by that community.”

    In the meantime, we can catch Hugh in X-Men: Days of Future Past when it opens in theaters on May 23rd. Hugh reprises his famous role as Wolverine, but don’t expect his X-Men character to cross over onto the Tony stage: “I’m not sure Fox will be thrilled if Wolverine came out singing and dancing.”

    Image via Wikimedia Commons

  • Bryan Cranston Nabs Tony Nomination

    Bryan Cranston won an Emmy, a Golden Globe, and a Screen Actor’s Guild Award for his performance as chemistry teacher turned meth king Walter White in the AMC drama Breaking Bad. Now, the actor has the opportunity to add a Tony Award to his list of accolades.

    The 58-year-old actor was nominated for a Tony Award for Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role in a Play for his performance as President Lyndon B. Johnson in the production All the Way, which is currently running at the Neil Simon Theatre on Broadway. The play was also nominated for Best Play.

    Cranston’s competition includes: Chris O’Dowd (Of Mice and Men), Samuel Barnett (Twelfth Night), Tony Shalhoub (Act One), and Mark Rylance (Richard III).

    The reviews for Cranston’s turn as President Johnson have been predominantly positive. Peter Marks of The Washington Post wrote, “Portraying America’s 36th chief executive, Lyndon Baines Johnson, in Robert Schenkkan’s democratic procedural drama “All the Way,” Cranston proves so effortlessly captivating that you could imagine pulling a lever for him — or even contributing generously to whatever campaign war chest he trots out.”

    The synopsis for All the Way:

    1963. An assassin’s bullet catapults Lyndon Baines Johnson into the presidency. A Shakespearean figure of towering ambition and appetite, the charismatic, conflicted Texan hurls himself into Civil Rights legislation, throwing the country into turmoil. Alternately bullying and beguiling, he enacts major social programs, faces down opponents and wins the 1964 election in a landslide. But in faraway Vietnam, a troublesome conflict looms.

    Lucy Liu and Jonathan Groff announced the nominations on Tuesday morning. You can check out the full list of contenders at the Tony Awards Official Website.

    The award ceremony will be hosted by renowned song and dance guru and A-List Hollywood star Hugh Jackman. The show will air on Sunday, June 8 at 8/7c on CBS.

    Image via Bryan Cranston, Facebook

  • Tony Awards 2014: Nominees Announced

    Tony Awards 2014: Nominees Announced

    The nominees for the 2014 Tony Awards were announced Tuesday morning by Jonathan Groff and Lucy Liu, with A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder and Hedwig and the Angry Itch receiving the most nods. Hugh Jackman, who is set to host the awards ceremony which will be broadcast live on June 8 on CBS, made an appearance alongside Liu and Groff, as the stars revealed the Tony field.

    Robert L. Freedman and Steven Lutvak’s comedy musical A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder garnered ten nominations altogether, and the rock musical Hedwig and the Angry Itch, starring Neil Patrick Harris, received 8 nominations. The music and lyrics of Hedwig were composed by Lexington, Kentucky’s own Stephen Trask. Harris was nominated for Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role in a Musical.

    Breaking Bad’s Bryan Cranston was nominated for Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role in a Play for his work in All the Way, and Tony Shalhoub received a nod for Act One.

    Nominees for productions include:

    Best Play:
    Act One
    All the Way
    Casa Valentina
    Mothers and Sons
    Outside Mullingar

    Best Musical:
    After Midnight
    Aladdin
    Beautiful – The Carole King Musical
    A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder

    Best Revival of a Play:
    The Cripple of Inishmaan
    The Glass Menagerie
    A Raisin in the Sun
    Twelfth Night

    Best Revival of a Musical:
    Hedwig and the Angry Inch
    Les Miserables
    Violet

    A complete list of the 2014 Tony Award nominees can be found here.

    Image via Wikimedia Commons