The Tamesis
If the Tony Awards are like the World Cup, then the cheerful dinners Anna Wintour and Bee Carrozzini host at their home each spring in the weeks leading up to the ceremony are a bit like a pre-game friendly. For some of this season’s standout performers, as well as the directors and playwrights behind their work, it’s a chance to relax and mingle before the official face-off.
That was the premise for Wintour and Carozini’s joint speech Sunday night, when they welcomed about 50 members of the New York theater group into the living room of Wintour’s Manhattan townhouse, where they enjoyed a casual dinner downstairs over cocktails and cake for dessert (this year, designed by pastry chef Daniel Colonel).
“You’ve all been through rounds of nominations, warm salads, and the theater world’s sugar-coated ‘fests’ that seem to pit you against each other,” Wintour said.
“But the spirit of the World Cup is not about winning, but about bringing together everyone’s special talents, skills and craftsmanship,” Carozini added.
Their guests certainly have a wealth of talent, skills and craftsmanship. One of the first to arrive and step into Wintour’s backyard for a brief portrait session with Emilio Madrid is three of the best (and busiest) directors currently working on Broadway: Kenny Leon, who’s enlivening a neighborhood association with a David Lindsay-Abel production. railing post; Lear DeBessonet, Artistic Director of Lincoln Center Theater Ragtime There are 11 Tony Award nominations this year (five members of the cast — Joshua Henry, in divine butter; his Sarah, the talented Nichelle Lewis; Brandon Uranowitz, in Saint Laurent; and Caissie Levy, in flowing powder-blue Prada dress; and Ben Levi Ross, who later joined the party in a stunning Kenzo stand-collar jacket. Whitney White performed this stunningly touching memory play with playwright Bess Wohl. liberation at the James Earl Jones Theater last fall. (Wall, along with liberation Stars Suzanne Flood and Betsy Edem followed. )
As is her wont, White is ready for another game: Whoopi Monologueopening this summer at LCT’s Newhouse Theater. (“We made a bold choice to work with five women,” White explains of the production, which is based on Whoopi Goldberg’s iconic one-woman play of the same name that ran at the Lyceum Theater from 1984 to 1985. “All of us were inspired by Whoopi. She was so edgy and fresh at the time. She crawled so we could play ball.”)
Zhailon Levingston and Bill Rauch, Co-Directors Cat: Jellicle Ball—a wonderfully innovative revival of one of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s most famous dramatic fantasies—also early on, with Levingston in a finely tailored gray suit by Bird Olivieri and Rauch in a salmon-pink suit studded with a glittering medieval brooch. “I’m not nervous, but I’m a little nervous about the Tonys because I’m so introverted,” Levingston said of the hectic final days before the June 7 broadcast. “But it’s the greatest blessing ever.”
