Casual notes on show-biz books, memoirs and studies, dust gatherers and hot off the presses.
Book Review by Samuel L. Leiter . . .
Eila Mell. The Tony Awards: A Celebration of Excellence in Theatre (New York: Black Dog & Leventhal Publishers, 2024). 310pp. Illustrated and indexed.
5th edition
As promised, some books covered in this series, now five editions (columns) old, will be “hot off the presses.” As an example, I today get to provide Eila Mell’s The Tony Awards: A Celebration of Excellence in Theatre. This attractive, coffee-table production bears the imprimatur of the American Theatre Wing, the distinguished organization that annually oversees the Tony Awards, named for actress-director-producer Antoinette Perry (1888-1946). The Tonys are universally considered, among a host of other theater awards, the cream of the crop, the honor most likely to help a career or boost a show’s bottom line.
Restricted to Broadway shows (except for special awards), and, physically less iconic than Hollywood’s sleek Oscar humanoids, they were, when first presented in 1947, merely silver-coated medallions presented in a silk-lined packet. Several years later, the medallion was suspended in an arc over a black, inscribed base, and thus have they remained through the years. One can see the change in the photos of award recipients seen in Mell’s book, although, as explained below, she herself doesn’t comment on it.
The design change is only a tiny part of the fascinatingly rich history embodied in the Tonys for aficionados of Broadway, the world’s best-known mecca of popular theater; readers of Mell’s book, however, will have to search elsewhere for that historical background. The most up-to-date sources, of course, will be found on the internet, but if you want something more informative for your shelves, desk, or coffee table, there are at least two previous Tony books, the most important being Lee Alan Morrow’s way out-of-date The Tony Award Book of 1987.
If ever there was a time for either an updated version of Morrow’s book or a completely new one that isn’t merely a listing of the awards (easily accessible on any smartphone), it’s now, 75 years after the first Tonys were presented. Mell’s book, however, lavishly produced as it is, has something else in mind.
I’ve known Mell and her husband, Michael Cesarano, a former student of mine, for many years, and am familiar with her solid reputation as a writer in the fashion field, with several books to her credit. Moreover, she recently published Designing Broadway, a major work on set design co-authored with leading Broadway designer Derek McLane. Consequently, her publication on the Tonys leaves me with mixed feelings.
It begins with a nostalgic foreword by multiple Tony-winning singer-actress Audra McDonald, followed by a five-paragraph introduction by American Theatre Wing (ATW) president and CEO Heather Hitchens and ATW chair Emilio Sosa, noted costume designer. A note then informs us that what follows celebrates the Tonys’ 75-year history by presenting “interviews, stories, and memories from the people who were there.” Aside from the fact that “the people who were there” refers to those who were still around to be interviewed for this book, that—not a history or exegesis of the Tonys—is what it delivers.
A vivid parade of celebrity witnesses, many of them American theater royalty, provide anecdotes and insights; but, unexpectedly, nothing appears in Mell’s own words, neither an explanation of her goals nor a context into which the contents can be placed to allow us an understanding and appreciation of the awards and awardees. The “interviews, stories, and memories” are presented throughout in blurbs, each headed by the name of the speaker or writer. There is no other text.
A small number of contributors are represented multiple times, in different years, suggesting that their separate remarks come from a single interview from which relevant extracts were then selected and placed where appropriate. No explanation of the interview (or editing) process is provided, although, given the army of people included—over 130!—it must have been a humongous project to round up so many busy people, record their words, and then slice them up into bite-size (or, occasionally, longer) chunks. A brief account of the process would have been enlightening.
The Tony Awards is divided by decades, from the 1940s to the 2020s, ending in 2023; it’s as contemporaneous as a book published in 2024 (this month, in fact) can be. Within these ten-year units, the years follow each other in order, with each year’s “Winners” listed in boxes on one or two pages, depending on the length of the list. Being nominated is now considered a significant achievement, but Mell’s book gives no nominee lists, nor is there any discussion offered of the nominating or award-selection process, which has changed considerably over the years. Readers, I’m sure, would like to know just who it is that nominates and votes for these prestigious awards, but nary a word on any of this is offered.
For each year, selected blurbs are provided by two or more winners, some only a paragraph or two long; now and then a quote is considerably longer and of intellectual or aesthetic value. Sentimental remarks and humorous yarns sit next to those with artistic and historical heft; a few are all these things. For the early years, whose winners are almost entirely deceased (June Lockhart, 98, is an exception), later winners offer reflections on people they never—or barely—knew personally. Typically, they have some loose connection, such as a contemporary actor talking about one from the past. Jose Ferrer, for example, who shared 1947’s “Actor in a Leading Role in a Play” award (for Cyrano de Bergerac) with Fredric March (for Years Ago), is commemorated by Ruben Santiago-Hudson chiefly because of their shared backgrounds as Puerto Ricans.
To a great extent, these excerpts share similar thoughts, expressed with both pride and humility: we hear how honored (and surprised) the recipients are to win a Tony; how they will “share” the award with their colleagues; how they dreamt of being on Broadway after watching the Tonys on TV as “theater kids”; how their parents, spouses, teachers, or lovers supported them; how they hope to inspire other budding artists; how proud they are to be part of the Broadway community; how joyous they feel about making breakthroughs for people with similar issues of ethnicity, gender, sexual preference, or disability; how much they admire their mentors and influencers; how much the Tony means in terms of peer recognition; how they got through their auditions; how they landed their roles; how many years of hard work they endured; how they were on the brink of quitting; how much they appreciated being part of a company family, and so on.
Given the great number of famous (and not-so-famous) people quoted, cliches are unavoidable, but we do get a healthy banquet of meaty, meaningful comments on their art from leading actors, directors, designers, choreographers, playwrights, and producers. Among those providing compelling recollections are Jason Alexander, Nathan Lane, Elizabeth Ashley, Julie Taymor, John Kander, Joel Grey, Leslie Uggams, Jane Alexander, Beowulf Boritt, Jules Fisher and Peggy Eisenhauer, Patti LuPone, Derek McLane, Oskar Eustis, Diane Paulus, Michael Arden, Rachel Chavkin, Rachel Hauck . . . you get the idea.
The same can be said of the frequent sections titled “Acceptance Speeches Through the Years.” Unlike the chapters highlighting the annual winners, these have no chronological order, although each comes with the name of the speaker and the year. They range from single-sentence pull quotes to one or two paragraphs per person. Unlike the annual chapters, here only do we meet artists who have passed away. Frustratingly, neither in the interview blurbs nor the acceptance speeches is any consistent effort made to identify the show or the specific award won by the speaker; where the excerpt itself makes no identification I found myself constantly searching the winners’ lists for the information.
And, on too many occasions, the reader is left to their own devices to figure out who is being referenced in someone’s quote. For example, actor Danny Burstein thanks everyone for their support while he “was taking care of” his unnamed wife during the Covid layoff; only those aware that his wife, Rebecca Luker, another Broadway favorite, had been suffering through a fatal illness would understand.
More than 400 photos illustrate Mell’s book but, unlike Morrow’s Tony book, only a tiny percentage picture the shows themselves, most of them for the earlier years. A few production photos, a few scene designs, a few mementos, an obscure Playbill, and a few costume images take a distant second place to abundant photos of smiling winners, alone or with others, often with their awards in hand. To a degree, it’s fun to see the celebrants celebrating, but it forces you to wonder whether the disappointing lack of theatrical images is related to a financial or rights obstacle.
Among small touches that would greatly have enhanced the book’s value would have been more captions that mention not only people’s names but the shows and awards they represent; information on each year’s venues and hosts; background on occasional anomalies, like award ties; an explanation of how and why the specific awards evolved—whatever happened to the “Stage Technician” award and what did it represent?—or increased in number (12 in 1947, 30 in 2023); and, among other possibilities, details on the origins and purposes of the special awards that have nothing to do with any of a season’s shows but gradually have become part of each Tony ceremony.
What is felt most significantly, however, is the lack of even a single word from Eila Mell herself. Her work cries out for a general overview, one that not only recites the Tony’s history, if only in outline, and helps fill in the many blanks. For such information, at least up to 37 years ago, readers will have to go to Morrow’s still important contribution. Cheap, used copies are available online.
But if such historical background holds no interest and what you’re really interested in are the often insightful, touching, and amusing thoughts of over 130 significant theatrical artists on the Tony experience, supplemented with photos of dressed-up stage celebs—from Helen Hayes to J. Harrison Ghee—showing off their trophies, that’s what you’ll get in The Tony Awards: A Celebration of Excellence in Theatre.
Moreover, given the fate of most coffee-table books, into which people are more likely to dip than dive, that’s likely to have been Eila Mell’s goal from the beginning.
Up next:
Stephen J. Bottoms, Playing Underground: A Critical History of the 1960s Off-0ff-Broadway Movement
David Crespy, Off-Off Explosion: How Provocative Playwrights of the 1960s Ignited a New American Theater
Leiter Looks at Books welcomes inquiries from publishers and authors interested in having their theater/show business-related books reviewed.
