Today, 6 April, is the anniversary of the very first Tony Awards ceremony – a mindboggling 77 years ago! The inaugural ceremony looked quite different from the events we know and love today. For instance, there was no public announcement of any nominees, and the awards were presented to theatre practitioners who had made outstanding contributions in their respective fields rather than in any set categories. Here’s a run-down of some of the highlights of that ceremony, with a particular focus on the magical musical theatre moments of the night.
1. Groundbreaking Beginnings
The American Theatre Wing’s Tony Awards were named for Antoinette Perry, an actress, director, and producer who had led the American Theatre Wing through the challenges of World War II. following Perry’s fatal heart attack in June 1946, Brock Pemberton, one of her contemporaries, proposed the idea of an awards platform to honour her. When he handed out the first award at the 1947 ceremony, he called it a Tony, christening what remains the most prestigious theatre award three-quarters of a century later. The first Tony Awards host was Vera Allen, Perry’s successor as chairwoman of the American Theatre Wing, and while certain elements of the proceedings are instantly recognisable to use today, the inclusion of a dinner – with a menu comprising lobster bisque, salted nuts, breast of chicken Montmorency in black cherry sauce, croquettes of brown rice, asparagus tips Polonaise, and frozen soufflé Alaska with strawberry sauce, petit fours and a demitasse – with the presentation of the awards starting at midnight might be surprising! The cost of a ticket to the ceremony was $7.
2. Stars on Stage
The tradition of including performances at the ceremony was established at this first event, with performances from The Chocolate Solider, Street Scene, Brigadoon, Oklahoma!, Call Me Mister, Sweethearts, Carousel and Finian’s Rainbow on the bill. The performers and presenters included Harold (soon known professionally as Howard) Keel and Ethel Waters, alongside Mickey Rooney, Sheila Bond, David Wayne and a host of other singers, actors and dancers. The programme doesn’t indicate what numbers were performed from these shows, but we could make some educated guesses.
- Keith Andes, Billy Gilbert and Frances McCann who performed the except from The Chocolate Solider, respectively played Bumerli, Popoff and Nadina in the production. One of the more popular numbers from the show was likely performed, so one could guess that “The Chocolate Soldier” or “Sympathy,” two of Bumerli and Nadina’s duets from the show. How did Gilbert fit in? Popff is involved in some of the dialogue running into the numbers, so perhaps that’s it. Maybe he just introduced the number. It’s a mystery.
- in Street Scene, Shiela Bond, Norman Cordon, Danny Daniels and Brian Sullivan played Mae, Frank, Dick and Sam. Mae and Dick had one big number in the show, “Moon-Faced, Starry-Eyed” – so it’s likely that Bond and Daniels performed it here. Frank and Sam had significant solo pieces in the shows, so Codron likely performed “A Boy Like You” and Sullivan, “Lonely House.”
- Brigadoon was probably represented by two of the big solos from the show, Charlie’s “Come to Me, Bend to Me” performed by Lee Sullivan, with David Brooks performing Tommy’s “There But For You Go I.”
- Mary Hatcher and Harold Keel were both Laurey and Curly replacements, so it is most likely that the audience heard “People Will Say We’re in Love from Oklahoma! at the first Tony Awards.
- The cast members from Sweethearts who performed at the ceremony were June Knight and Robert Shackleton. As Liane and Lt Karl, they probably sang “I Might Be Your Once-in-a-While.”
- Finally, the performance from Carousel was almost certainly “If I Loved You,” presented by Henry Michiel and Ivy Withers who had taken up the roles of Billy and Julie.
With music provided by Meyer Davis and his orchestra, it must have been a good night’s entertainment!
3. Behind the Scenes
Several artists were awarded in craft categories for their work behind the scenes. Elia Kazan was recognised for his outstanding direction of All My Sons, while Arthur Miller’s script for the play was celebrated with a special award. Kurt Weill’s work on the opera, Street Scene, saw him honoured as an outstanding composer. Then, in what can only be viewed now as an incredible fashion flashback, Lucinda Ballard was presented a Tony Award for her costume designs for no fewer than five shows: Happy Birthday, Another Part of the Forest, Street Scene, John Loves Mary and The Chocolate Soldier. P. A. MacDonald’s ‘intricate construction’ work for the musical, If the Shoe Fits, was also acknowledged. Special awards were also presented for a range of skill sets and support of the performing arms industry, specifically to:
- Dora Chamberlain, for her work as the treasurer of the Martin Beck Theatre;
- Mr and Mrs Ira Katzenberg, for their enthusiastic support of the theatre as regular first-night attendees;
- Jules Leventhal, for his prolific work as a producer of the 1946-1947 season;
- Burns Mantle, for his annual Best Plays publication; and
- Vincent Sardi Sr, for his establishment of Sardis, which had, at that stage, been a haven for theatre folk for two decades.
4. Dancing into History
The 1940s was a decade that saw Broadway choreographers raise the bar when it came to storytelling through dance in musical theatre. It’s no surprise that both Agnes de Mille and Michael Kidd were recognised at the first Tony Awards ceremony for their work on Brigadoon and Finian’s Rainbow respectively.
De Mille had been responsible for a great deal of the move toward choreographic storytelling on Broadway through her work in both Oklahoma! and Carousel, having also staged the dances in Swingin’ The Dream, a transposition of A Midsummer Night’s Dream into an 1890s New Orleans setting, before her groundbreaking work in the two Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein shows. She also chalked up credits in One Touch of Venus and Bloomer Girl before moving to Brigadoon. Along with her advocacy for women dancers, De Mille is remembered for using choreography to flesh out the emotional dimension of musical theatre characters in addition to focusing on the technique required to execute the steps.
Kidd is remembered today for his athletic and exciting choreography. Finian’s Rainbow was his Broadway debut as a musical theatre choreographer and there’s more to his choreography than its vigour. One of his innovations was building choreography from the vocabulary of a character’s ordinary movements, heightening and stylising how a character moved to the nth degree. This helped elevate the emotional arc of the character and the show as a whole because there was a more seamless transition from movement into dance, in the same way that the best musicals move out of dialogue and into song gracefully and joyfully.
5. The Outstanding Performers of the Season
The outstanding performers named at the inaugural Tony Awards were mostly from plays from the previous season, including José Ferrer in Cyrano de Bergerac, Fredric March in Years Ago, Ingrid Bergman in Joan of Lorraine and Helen Hayes in Happy Birthday. Patricia Neal was also singled out as an Outstanding Newcomer for her role in Another Part of the Forest. Only one award was presented to an actor from a musical: David Wayne in Finian’s Rainbow. Wayne played Og, a leprechaun whose pot of gold has been stolen by Finian McLonergan. To grow his treasure by burying it near Fort Knox, Finian emigrates to the United States of America with his daughter, Sharon. Og pursues them, as he will be turned permanently into a human if he cannot recover it. Many years later, Wayne would perform one of his character-defining numbers at the 1971 Tony Awards in a salute to a quarter century of musical theatre hits. His charm in putting over “When I’m Not Near the Girl I Love” is just a small reminder of the vitality that earned him the first Tony Award ever presented to a musical theatre actor.
Looking Ahead
As we eagerly anticipate this year’s Tony Awards ceremony, set to honour the best of the 2023-2024 Broadway season, the legacy of shows like Finian’s Rainbow and Brigadoon reminds us of the enduring magic and impact of theatre. As the nominations roll in on 30 April and the awards ceremony, to be hosted by the talented Ariana DeBose, follows two months later on 30 June, theatre enthusiasts everywhere will be on the edge of their seats, awaiting the announcement of this year’s winners. Recognising both classic revivals and groundbreaking new productions, the Tony Awards continue to celebrate the artistry and innovation of Broadway, ensuring that the legacy of exceptional theatre lives on for generations to come. So mark your calendars, set your reminders, and join us as we tune in to witness the next chapter in Broadway history unfold.
Musical Cyberspace 
The Saturday List: My Junk is SPRING AWAKENING
Get ready to journey back to the groundbreaking world of Spring Awakening, a modern musical where the show tunes are as haunting as the themes are daring! Since its debut, this Tony Award-winning musical has captivated audiences with its raw portrayal of adolescent angst, sexuality and rebellion against societal norms. But beyond the powerful storytelling and unforgettable songs lies a series of creative moments that have left an indelible mark on the landscape of musical theatre. Bold artistic choices and innovative staging ideas enabled Spring Awakening to move beyond the boundaries of the genre in ways that continue to resonate with audiences today. In today’s Saturday List, we revisit just five of the most creative ideas that helped to solidify this show’s place in musical theatre history.
1. Origin Story, or “[Frank Wedekind] who Bore Me“
The play upon which the musical adaptation of Spring Awakening is based was completed by Frank Wedekind in 1891. Frühlings Erwachen was not, however, performed until 1906, when Max Reinhardt staged it at the Deutsches Theatre in Berlin. Set against the backdrop of the sexually oppressive nineteenth century, the play follows a group of teenagers – primarily Melchior Gabor, Wendla Gabor and Moritz Stiefel – whose journey through puberty leads them to experiences of sexuality, physical and sexual abuse, suicide, pregnancy and abortion. The first English performance of the play was in 1917, at which time New York City’s Commissioner of Licenses through its edgy content and approach pushed the boundaries too far. Everyone headed to court, where an injunction allowed the production to be staged. While the play’s brilliance in its original German form was recognised by critics, the first English production was criticised for its poor translation. Since then, the play has been translated several times; my favourite version is the 1995 Royal Shakespeare Company-commissioned version by Ted Hughes. Almost three decades later, the Hughes translation is still a great introduction to the play for anyone who has no experience of it, or for fans of the musical who want to see just what inspired composer Duncan Sheik and librettist Steven Sater to put their own spin on the story.
2. Anticipating Expressionism, or “All That’s Known“
Frühlings Erwachen anticipated the Expressionist theatre movement that would reach the height of its popularity during World War I. I would never say that Spring Awakening is a work of Expressionism. What I would say, is that Wedekind’s foreshadowing of the movement in his work in general means that some of the movement’s conventions have their foundations in his practice. This makes a basic knowledge of Expressionism in the theatre useful to understand the play and its musical adaptation. Back in the day when the online musical theatre forums reigned supreme, the glory days of which were already in their decline when Spring Awakening made its musical theatre bow in 2006, the pearl-clutching generation of musical theatre superfans lamented what they perceived to be poorly developed characters, thematic ideas that went nowhere and emblematic characters that should have been fleshed out. I vividly remember one regular poster on the forums referring to the show as pop trash. They simply didn’t get it. Perhaps they were never going to get it. To them, Spring Awakening was innovation without substance; to those of us who loved the show, it was innovation that meant something. People who loved the show understood that musicals could be built in ways that challenged the Rodgers and Hammerstein II model, by drawing on an array of other theatrical influences, just as Stephen Sondheim had done in Company and Follies and theatre-makers of the next generation, like Sheik and Sater, were doing in Spring Awakening.
3. A Fever Dream, or “The Bitch of Living”
The musical adaptation of Spring Awakening is like a fever dream. While it is broadly linear chronologically, its episodic structure and the sometimes casual relationship between the scenes make it feel like a collage with Sater’s book carrying us from song to song. It’s the perfect structure for a play about a group of teenagers who are ‘tossing, turning without rest.’ One of the aspects of Expressionism that Wedekind prefigured was its distorted representation of reality to communicate inner feelings. Sheik and Sater picked up on these impulses: Spring Awakening is less about creating a conventional narrative journey than creating states of being. The songs are like rabbit holes that take us deep into each character’s personal Wonderland, landscapes full of beauty and horror. We learn about “The Song of Purple Summer” and “The Mirror-Blue Mind,” about “The Dark I Know Well” and “The Word of Your Body,” and every moment gives us insight into a particular character’s experience of a situation. In its avoidance of traditional character development over the show, Spring Awakening acknowledges that in life, experiences are fragmented in the context of a single life and of a community. The show proposes that we should see a story about people who are ‘broken inside’ in a broken way and in this way, delivers to us a key we can use to unlock our own souls.
4. Microphones and Stereos, or “My Junk”
One of the most controversial staging choices in the original production of Spring Awakening was the use of hand-held microphones, an anachronous prop in a nineteenth-century setting. The show’s most eager critics decried how random this appeared and chalked it up as an empty nod to pop culture and a shallow way of making the show’s issues feel relevant today. There’s just more to it than that. In Expressionist drama, the action is seen through the eyes of the characters and, therefore, seems distorted or even dreamlike. Wedekind’s use of this technique was another way he preempted the genre, evident in Spring Awakening through a narrative constructed from the collective perspectives of Melchoir, Wendla, Moritz and the gang. Combined with a bit of Freudian theory, we can then begin to understand the use of hand-held microphones as well as the mention of other contemporary objects in the show. Freud’s theory states that our psychological makeup includes the “id” (the fully unconscious part of our mind that contains the drives related to things like sex and aggression and other things repressed by consciousness), the “ego” (the mostly conscious part of our mind that allows us to deal with the world in which we exist), and the “superego” (the partly conscious part of our mind that informs our moral judgments). In Spring Awakening, we see certain songs delving into the characters’ respective ids. These moments are highlighted through the appearance of hand-held microphones and the mention of other contemporary objects. It’s not just about making the issues of “then” seem relevant “now.” There is a central and binding metaphor at work here, in which the teenagers view themselves (in their “id”) as rock stars: free and able to perform with agency. The whole point is that the microphones are incongruent with the reality of the historical period. We are caught in the middle of a fantastical imagining of a world that never was and never can be, that this group of teenagers will never fully attain.
4. Left to Their Own Devices, or “The Guilty Ones”
Teen stories, whether their creators tell them in writing, on film or television or on stage, rely on one central conceit: the adults are notably absent or superficially drawn so that the teens may be left to their own devices. Spring Awakening takes this one step further, with Wedekind in the original play (once again moulding ideas that would feature in Expressionism) and Sheik and Sater in the musical using this technique to couch their critical view of controlling societal structures like the family, education and the church. The adult characters in Spring Awakening are purposeful caricatures, subjectively seen through the eyes of the teenagers and as such, are uniformly punitive, heatless or clueless. It’s a masterstroke to have them all played by the same two actors in the musical and adds to the “us and them” opposition that informs the play’s action: “we, the teenagers are individuals; they, the adults, are all the same”.
Closing Thoughts
It’s time to whisper our way out of our all-too-brief behind-the-scenes exploration of Spring Awakening, a show that has carved out a unique place in the annals of musical theatre history. It’s clear that this musical is a force to be reckoned with as it continues to challenge and inspire audiences with its raw honesty and unapologetic creativity almost two decades after its first performances!