Revivals have been a mainstay of Broadway for decades. But it wasn’t until the 31st ceremony in 1977 that the Tony Awards added a new category honoring these productions. The nominees for the inaugural prize were “Guys and Dolls,” “The Cherry Orchard” and “The Three Penny Opera” with “Porgy and Bess” taking the honors. Other winners over the years included “The Pirates of Penzance,” “Anything Goes,” “Death of a Salesman,” “Fiddler on the Roof” and “Gypsy.”
In 1994, the category was divided into best revival of a musical with Rodgers and Hammerstein’s “Carousel” winning the award and “An Inspector Calls” taking home the best revival of a play honor.
This year’s nominees in both categories celebrate the work of Stephen Sondheim, Henrik Ibsen and three landmark black playwrights: August Wilson, Suzan-Lori Parks and Lorraine Hansberry. Here’s a closer look at this year’s contenders.
Best Revival of a Musical
“Into the Woods”
“Company,...
In 1994, the category was divided into best revival of a musical with Rodgers and Hammerstein’s “Carousel” winning the award and “An Inspector Calls” taking home the best revival of a play honor.
This year’s nominees in both categories celebrate the work of Stephen Sondheim, Henrik Ibsen and three landmark black playwrights: August Wilson, Suzan-Lori Parks and Lorraine Hansberry. Here’s a closer look at this year’s contenders.
Best Revival of a Musical
“Into the Woods”
“Company,...
- 6/8/2023
- by Susan King
- Gold Derby
“That representation that I longed for when I was a young actor coming up? To be able to offer that, to be given the opportunity to offer that, is a dream come true,” Angela Bassett said during a career-retrospective interview on Thursday prior to receiving the Santa Barbara International Film Festival’s Montecito Award in recognition of her body of work and her 2022 Oscar-nominated turn as Queen Ramonda in Ryan Coogler’s Black Panther: Wakanda Forever. “It’s a full-circle moment.”
The youthful 64-year-old, whose best supporting actress Oscar nom marks the Academy’s first-ever recognition for a performance in a Marvel film — and the second Oscar nom of Bassett’s career, 29 years after she received a best actress nom for What’s Love Got to Do with It — reflected on her life and 35 years in the business over the course of a two-hour conversation at the historic Arlington Theatre that...
The youthful 64-year-old, whose best supporting actress Oscar nom marks the Academy’s first-ever recognition for a performance in a Marvel film — and the second Oscar nom of Bassett’s career, 29 years after she received a best actress nom for What’s Love Got to Do with It — reflected on her life and 35 years in the business over the course of a two-hour conversation at the historic Arlington Theatre that...
- 2/11/2023
- by Scott Feinberg
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
“August Wilson had this amazing innate ability to capture our history, our story, our cultures, our dreams, our hopes, our fears, our wants and desires — all of it within the American Century cycle,” The Piano Lesson producer Brian Anthony Moreland tells The Hollywood Reporter over the phone in December. “But what sets The Piano Lesson apart [in the Century Cycle] is easy. It’s legacy. It has always been about legacy.”
Since opening in October, The Piano Lesson has offered theatergoers a chance to reexamine both the legacy and lessons of all of Wilson’s work through its single story — now the late writer’s highest-grossing play on Broadway and highest-grossing revival of any play this season. It’s an opportunity that has brought to the fore the unique relationship the playwright’s work frequently has not only with audiences, but the Black artists across generations who serve as the beneficiaries and guardians of...
Since opening in October, The Piano Lesson has offered theatergoers a chance to reexamine both the legacy and lessons of all of Wilson’s work through its single story — now the late writer’s highest-grossing play on Broadway and highest-grossing revival of any play this season. It’s an opportunity that has brought to the fore the unique relationship the playwright’s work frequently has not only with audiences, but the Black artists across generations who serve as the beneficiaries and guardians of...
- 1/8/2023
- by Abbey White
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Click here to read the full article.
[Warning: This story contains spoilers for Black Panther: Wakanda Forever.]
Use it. Angela Bassett learned that lesson from Lloyd Richards, the late former dean of her alma mater the Yale School of Drama, years ago. It’s a mantra that came back to her when working on Ryan Coogler’s Black Panther: Wakanda Forever as she reprised the role of Queen Ramonda, who becomes leader of the nation of Wakanda in the wake of the death of her son, T’Challa, a plot point that was necessary given the circumstances surrounding the untimely passing of star Chadwick Boseman in August 2020. Meshing her own grief with her character’s, Bassett returned to those words of her instructor: “Use it.”
Bassett owns the screen as a woman trying to hold her country together while also grappling with her sorrow and the buried emotions of her daughter, Shuri (Letitia Wright). The Oscar-nominated...
[Warning: This story contains spoilers for Black Panther: Wakanda Forever.]
Use it. Angela Bassett learned that lesson from Lloyd Richards, the late former dean of her alma mater the Yale School of Drama, years ago. It’s a mantra that came back to her when working on Ryan Coogler’s Black Panther: Wakanda Forever as she reprised the role of Queen Ramonda, who becomes leader of the nation of Wakanda in the wake of the death of her son, T’Challa, a plot point that was necessary given the circumstances surrounding the untimely passing of star Chadwick Boseman in August 2020. Meshing her own grief with her character’s, Bassett returned to those words of her instructor: “Use it.”
Bassett owns the screen as a woman trying to hold her country together while also grappling with her sorrow and the buried emotions of her daughter, Shuri (Letitia Wright). The Oscar-nominated...
- 12/21/2022
- by Esther Zuckerman
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Click here to read the full article.
Mary Alice, the Tony- and Emmy-winning actress who starred in the original Broadway production of Fences, portrayed the mother of three singing daughters in Sparkle and appeared as The Oracle in The Matrix Revolutions, has died. She was 85.
Alice died Wednesday in her Manhattan apartment, an NYPD spokesperson told The Hollywood Reporter.
In 1990 films, Alice played Nurse Margaret opposite Robin Williams and Robert De Niro in Awakenings, directed by Penny Marshall; the family matriarch dealing with a disruptive guest (Danny Glover) in Charles Burnett’s To Sleep With Anger; and a woman whose son was struck by a car in the South Bronx in Brian De Palma’s The Bonfire of the Vanities.
The onetime Chicago schoolteacher received back-to-back Emmy nominations in 1992 and ’93 — winning in the second year — for her supporting turn as Marguerite Peck, whose child is murdered, on the Atlanta-set NBC legal drama I’ll Fly Away,...
Mary Alice, the Tony- and Emmy-winning actress who starred in the original Broadway production of Fences, portrayed the mother of three singing daughters in Sparkle and appeared as The Oracle in The Matrix Revolutions, has died. She was 85.
Alice died Wednesday in her Manhattan apartment, an NYPD spokesperson told The Hollywood Reporter.
In 1990 films, Alice played Nurse Margaret opposite Robin Williams and Robert De Niro in Awakenings, directed by Penny Marshall; the family matriarch dealing with a disruptive guest (Danny Glover) in Charles Burnett’s To Sleep With Anger; and a woman whose son was struck by a car in the South Bronx in Brian De Palma’s The Bonfire of the Vanities.
The onetime Chicago schoolteacher received back-to-back Emmy nominations in 1992 and ’93 — winning in the second year — for her supporting turn as Marguerite Peck, whose child is murdered, on the Atlanta-set NBC legal drama I’ll Fly Away,...
- 7/28/2022
- by Mike Barnes
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Emmy- and Tony-winning actress Cicely Tyson, who distinguished herself in theater, film and television, died on Thursday afternoon. She was 96.
“I have managed Miss Tyson’s career for over 40 years, and each year was a privilege and blessing,” her manager, Larry Thompson, said in a statement. “Cicely thought of her new memoir as a Christmas tree decorated with all the ornaments of her personal and professional life. Today she placed the last ornament, a Star, on top of the tree.”
Her memoir “Just As I Am” was published on Tuesday.
Tyson broke into movies with the 1959 Harry Belafonte film “Odds Against Tomorrow,” followed by “The Comedians,” “The Last Angry Man,” “A Man Called Adam” and “The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter.” Refusing to participate in the blaxploitation movies that became popular in the late ’60s, she waited until 1972 to return to the screen in the drama “Sounder,” which captured several...
“I have managed Miss Tyson’s career for over 40 years, and each year was a privilege and blessing,” her manager, Larry Thompson, said in a statement. “Cicely thought of her new memoir as a Christmas tree decorated with all the ornaments of her personal and professional life. Today she placed the last ornament, a Star, on top of the tree.”
Her memoir “Just As I Am” was published on Tuesday.
Tyson broke into movies with the 1959 Harry Belafonte film “Odds Against Tomorrow,” followed by “The Comedians,” “The Last Angry Man,” “A Man Called Adam” and “The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter.” Refusing to participate in the blaxploitation movies that became popular in the late ’60s, she waited until 1972 to return to the screen in the drama “Sounder,” which captured several...
- 1/29/2021
- by Carmel Dagan
- Variety Film + TV
13th and When They See Us director Ava DuVernay is the latest artist to receive the annual Dorothy and Lillian Gish Prize.
With Thursday’s announcement from the Gish Prize Trust, founded by actresses Dorothy and Lillian Gish, DuVernay is the fourth filmmaker to receive the honor. The director follows past honorees Ingmar Bergman, Robert Redford and Spike Lee. Upon receiving the honor, DuVernay referred to the Way Down East actress’ description of the prize.
“She said the prize was going to go to an artist who contributes to our understanding of ‘the beauty of life.’ What a notion. With her description, my own view of what I do has shifted slightly more toward embracing the beauty around me and welcoming it at every turn,” she said.
Each year the Gish Prize Trust hands the award over to an artist who has used their work and platform to contribute to...
With Thursday’s announcement from the Gish Prize Trust, founded by actresses Dorothy and Lillian Gish, DuVernay is the fourth filmmaker to receive the honor. The director follows past honorees Ingmar Bergman, Robert Redford and Spike Lee. Upon receiving the honor, DuVernay referred to the Way Down East actress’ description of the prize.
“She said the prize was going to go to an artist who contributes to our understanding of ‘the beauty of life.’ What a notion. With her description, my own view of what I do has shifted slightly more toward embracing the beauty around me and welcoming it at every turn,” she said.
Each year the Gish Prize Trust hands the award over to an artist who has used their work and platform to contribute to...
- 8/6/2020
- by Alexandra Del Rosario
- Deadline Film + TV
With more than a combined 100 years in the business, Cicely Tyson and Glynn Turman have endured plenty; they launched their careers in an America that was still governed by Jim Crow laws, and have worked consistently since, both on stage and screen. And they certainly have a lifetime of fascinating stories to tell, having starred opposite screen legends including Sidney Poitier, Ossie Davis, Ruby Dee, Harry Belafonte and more. They’ve worked together on several occasions, first in a 1974 staging of Eugene O’Neill’s “Desire Under The Elms,” to playing mother and son in the film “The River Niger” (1976), and co-starring in “A Hero Ain’t Nothin’ But a Sandwich” (1978). The beloved pair now find themselves in contention for Best Drama Guest Actress and Actor Emmy consideration for their roles in ABC’s Shondaland legal series “How to Get Away with Murder.”
Created by Peter Nowalk, the drama stars Viola Davis as Annalise Keating,...
Created by Peter Nowalk, the drama stars Viola Davis as Annalise Keating,...
- 8/27/2019
- by Tambay Obenson
- Indiewire
Netflix will be making the feature adaptation of August Wilson’s award-winning play Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom.
Denzel Washington is producing the film and it’s a project he has long spoke about in development to Deadline with the original plan for nine of Wilson’s plays to be movies on HBO. That deal was moved over to Netflix.
Viola Davis, who won a best supporting actress Oscar for her work in Washington’s adaptation of Wilson’s Fences, will star in Ma Rainey along with Chadwick Boseman, Glynn Turman, Colman Domingo and Michael Potts. The project reteams Davis and Washington on their third Wilson endeavor after starring in both the 2010 Broadway revival of Fences and the 2016 film version, which he directed and also earned three Oscar noms. Davis and Washington both won Tony Awards for their roles.
Production starts next month in Pittsburgh.
Multiple Tony and DGA award...
Denzel Washington is producing the film and it’s a project he has long spoke about in development to Deadline with the original plan for nine of Wilson’s plays to be movies on HBO. That deal was moved over to Netflix.
Viola Davis, who won a best supporting actress Oscar for her work in Washington’s adaptation of Wilson’s Fences, will star in Ma Rainey along with Chadwick Boseman, Glynn Turman, Colman Domingo and Michael Potts. The project reteams Davis and Washington on their third Wilson endeavor after starring in both the 2010 Broadway revival of Fences and the 2016 film version, which he directed and also earned three Oscar noms. Davis and Washington both won Tony Awards for their roles.
Production starts next month in Pittsburgh.
Multiple Tony and DGA award...
- 6/19/2019
- by Anthony D'Alessandro
- Deadline Film + TV
Since Bill Duke the Sundance Special Jury-prize winning film “The Killing Floor” (1984), the multi-hyphenate talent has rarely been out of sight on screens big and small.
In the ’90s, Duke directed acclaimed crime films focused on black themes and characters, including the Cannes Fest competitor “A Rage in Harlem”; “Hoodlum,” with an enviable cast that included Laurence Fishburne, Queen Latifah and Cicely Tyson; and the Spirit Award-nommed “Deep Cover.”
Duke, one of TV’s most-in-demand character actors, has racked up dozens of credits in shows ranging from “Battlestar Galactica” to “Lost.” His big-screen directors include Steven Soderbergh, Paul Schrader, Jim Sheridan and the legendary Sam Fuller, who once assessed Duke as “the best film director in America today.”
Duke’s autobiography, “Bill Duke: My 40-Year Career on Screen and Behind the Camera,” was published last month, but Duke was first noted in Variety for his role in the 1972 ABC Afterschool Special,...
In the ’90s, Duke directed acclaimed crime films focused on black themes and characters, including the Cannes Fest competitor “A Rage in Harlem”; “Hoodlum,” with an enviable cast that included Laurence Fishburne, Queen Latifah and Cicely Tyson; and the Spirit Award-nommed “Deep Cover.”
Duke, one of TV’s most-in-demand character actors, has racked up dozens of credits in shows ranging from “Battlestar Galactica” to “Lost.” His big-screen directors include Steven Soderbergh, Paul Schrader, Jim Sheridan and the legendary Sam Fuller, who once assessed Duke as “the best film director in America today.”
Duke’s autobiography, “Bill Duke: My 40-Year Career on Screen and Behind the Camera,” was published last month, but Duke was first noted in Variety for his role in the 1972 ABC Afterschool Special,...
- 12/6/2018
- by Steven Gaydos
- Variety Film + TV
Celebrated African American author and culture critic James Baldwin had very few engagements with Hollywood, mostly appearing in several documentaries as himself. Most recently, he came to moviegoers in archival footage as the subject of Raoul Peck’s Oscar-nominated 2016 documentary, “I Am Not Your Negro.” Baldwin was a fervent critic of America’s commercial entertainment complex, so it may come as a surprise to learn that, 40 years ago, he was considering a film version of his 1974 novel, “If Beale Street Could Talk” — which has finally made its way to a movie version, with Barry Jenkins at the helm.
It turns out that Baldwin jotted down ideas on how he would approach the adaptation, including some suggestions for the cast. Jenkins shared details on this previously-unreleased information during an hour-long in-depth conversation at a New York Film Festival event ahead of the film’s U.S. premiere.
During the wide-ranging conversation,...
It turns out that Baldwin jotted down ideas on how he would approach the adaptation, including some suggestions for the cast. Jenkins shared details on this previously-unreleased information during an hour-long in-depth conversation at a New York Film Festival event ahead of the film’s U.S. premiere.
During the wide-ranging conversation,...
- 10/9/2018
- by Tambay Obenson
- Indiewire
Update: If only Lloyd Richards were still around... Via a live stream of a conversation between Denzel Washington and Dr Todd Boyd happening at USC School of Cinematic Arts as I type this, Washington just revealed that, in addition to the below previously-announced film adaptation of August Wilson's "Fences" (which he'll star in - along with Viola Davis - and direct), he's inked a deal with HBO that will see him bring to the screen, Wilson’s American Century Cycle series, which consists of 10 plays portraying the 20th century African American experience, from the early 1900s, just after slavery and the Civil War, to the 1990s, which saw a large and increasingly...
- 9/18/2015
- by Tambay A. Obenson
- ShadowAndAct
Today we are talking to a Tony Award-winning star known for her many impressive appearances on Broadway in Jellys Last Jam, Play On, The Wild Party and her tremendous title turn in the towering Caroline, Or Change - the one and only Tonya Pinkins. Opening up about her career and many of her most memorable roles, Pinkins lets us in to her world and shares experiences of working with some of the most noted names in theatre - George C. Wolfe, Harold Prince, August Wilson, Stephen Sondheim, Lloyd Richards, Daniel Sullivan, David Esbjornson and many more among them - on everything from Merrily We Roll Along, her Broadway debut, to her many musical roles to August Wilsons The Piano Lesson and Radio Golf all the way to last seasons Shakespeare In The Park double-header of The Merry Wives Of Windsor and Measure For Measure. Most importantly, Pinkins fills us in...
- 8/24/2012
- by Pat Cerasaro
- BroadwayWorld.com
Actor, director, producer, and writer Charles Randolph-Wright has been named the recipient of the 2010 Paul Robeson Award, Actors' Equity Association announced Monday. The annual award honors individuals for their exemplary artistic and humanitarian achievements.Randolph-Wright was chosen for his efforts in creating opportunities for people of color, including Different Voices, a development program for playwrights at New York's Roundabout Theatre Company. He is the founder and artistic director of the Create Carolina Festival, an intensive multidisciplinary arts program designed to help students achieve professional success. He is also a founder of the Wright Family Foundation in South Carolina, which funds educational programs for at-risk youth."I am proud and challenged to be included on this roster of such extraordinary people who I know have changed the world," Randolph-Wright said in a written statement. "I may not yet be one of those luminaries upon whose shoulders I stand, but I believe...
- 10/5/2010
- backstage.com
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