The Theatre Hall of Fame Awards

by Richard Ridge

At the end of each season the theatre honors its own with a slew of awards including The Tonys, The Drama Desk, The Outer Critics, and the list goes on. There is one award you may not be aware of and that is The Theater Hall of Fame Award. Considered by many to be their favorite, The Theater Hall of Fame, which honors lifetime achievement in the American Theatre, was originated in 1971, and was the brainchild of Earl Blackwell, James M. Nederlander, Gerard Oestreicher and Arnold Weissberger. To be eligible to be nominated for this award, a notable must have a career spanning at least 25 years on Broadway and have more than five major credits to their name.

Past recipients read like a who's who of Broadway. Richard Burton, Uta Hagan, Julie Harris, Julie Andrews, George Abbott and Frank Loesser to name a few.

The Gershwin Theatre recently hosted the thirty first annual Theatre Hall of Fame Awards. Each year, The American Theatre Critics Association and the members of The Theatre Hall of Fame, vote from a national ballot with over 100 nominees.

This year's prestigious list of inductees included, Robert Brustein, the founding director of the Yale Repertory and American Repertory Theatres. Costume designer Alvin Colt, who is currently represented by the long- running Off -Broadway revue, Forbidden Broadway, began his career on Broadway in 1944 with On The Town, and went on to design the costumes for such shows as Guys And Dolls, Fanny, Li'l Abner, The Lark and Wildcat. The late great choreographer Peter Gennaro, who co-choreographed West Side Story, went on to musical stage such shows as Fiorello, The Unsinkable Molly Brown, Irene and Annie, for which he won the Tony and the Drama Desk. Henry Hewes, who served as drama critic for The Saturday Review and was the first New York critic, to regularly review plays on Broadway, off- Broadway, nationally and internationally with equal emphasis.

Tony Award winner George Grizzard, who created the role of Nick in Edward Albee's Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? has also created roles for Arthur Miller and A.R. Gurney. "I started trying fifty years ago this month." Grizzard looks back. " It took a few years. I have been very lucky. I have enjoyed the work a lot."

Composer Charles Strouse, who is the Tony, Emmy and and Grammy- Award-winning composer of the musicals Bye, Bye, Birdie, Applause, Annie, and Rags, summed up his beginnings in the business. "I struggled financially speaking up until my first Broadway show Bye, Bye, Birdie. And then suddenly I swam into the big bucks. I was very lucky in that respect, and have always appreciated it, and I am very grateful. I thank my genes for giving me talent and giving me the luck to have found Mike Stewart, Lee Adams and Gower Champion," says a humbling Strouse.

T. Edward Hambleton, who founded The Phoenix Theatre with Norris Houghton in 1953, became one of the pioneers of the off- Broadway movement, was inducted by Rosemary Harris. "Yes it means a great deal to me," Hambleton explains. " Because it covers the entire forty years I have been in the theatre. Hambleton has produced two hundred and eleven shows for the Phoenix Theatre." There was too much of Broadway about- so we decided to setup (The Phoenix Theatre) outside of the Broadway limits. We opened with Hume Cronyn and Jessica Tandy in Madame Will You Walk. It had been a play that had closed in Baltimore in 1940. They had a tempted to bring the show to Broadway. The Phoenix picked it up and gave it life."

One of the biggest highlights of the evening was American Theatre Wing chairman Isabelle Stevenson being inducted by her friend Tony Award winner Carol Channing. Stevenson was thrilled to have Channing there. "I can't tell you how excited I am -how grateful I am. This is a wonderful woman and a marvelous friend. She came directly from California just for this and when you have a friend in the theatre like this then you have a friend for life."

"Isabelle has brought the theatre into the schools for the children. She was part of the board of education," Channing explains. " Once we all saw live theatre happening right before our eyes we were hooked. Isabelle brings those professional people to the schools so they can just taste it enough so they are hooked foe life. It's an important thing to do and Isabelle has brought that to public schools. She has brought the live Broadway theatre into the community. She has created and nurtured a whole new generation of theatergoers," An exuberant Channing sums it up. " I think she's the Mother Theresa of the theatre." " I'll except that," Stevenson laughs. " Once you bring a child into the theatre they are hooked for life."

The evening was preceded over by Tony Award winning actress Marian Seldes. Miss. Seldes, who is a past inductee of The Theatre Hall of Fame, reflects on the award. " I feel I am hooked into it like a fish that's caught. I feel this group of people love and admire each other. It's a very personal thing. When it happens to you. You can't believe that you were chosen. It's just lovely."