Tony! Tony! Tony!
May 15, 2007 at 4:21 pm by Curt Holman in NewsThe Alliance Theatre has won a Tony Award, the highest-profile honor in American theater. According to the Tony Awards official press release for the 2007 nominations, “Based on a recommendation by the American Theatre Critics Association, Alliance Theatre of Atlanta will be the recipient of the 2007 Regional Theatre Tony Award accompanied by a grant of $25,000 sponsored by Visa U.S.A. This award is given to a regional theatre company that has displayed a continuous level of artistic achievement contributing to the growth of theatre nationally.”
That’s great for the Alliance and great for Atlanta theater in general. It’s just a shame that the Alliance Theatre’s former artistic director, Kenny Leon, didn’t get a Best Director nomination for August Wilson’s Radio Golf (which picked up three nominations in other categories). That would’ve made the Alliance doubly honored.
Of the other nominees, I’m most interested in Tom Stoppard’s trilogy The Coast of Utopia, which picked up 10 nominations, along with the musical Grey Gardens, although the rock music revision of Spring Awakening earned 11. In December of 2003 I wrote about Utopia, a trilogy about 19th-century Russian intellectuals, in an Off-Script column and wondered whether Atlanta theater would ever be ready to stage such a long, challenging work. Maybe Utopia’s nominations, and the Alliance’s win, suggests that we’re a few steps closer. At any rate, the Tony Awards will be broadcast live on June 10 on CBS.
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