arts&life

theater

Ben Platt

Bette Midler

Brandon Uranowitz

The Tribe At The Tonys

NATE BLOOM SPECIAL TO THE JEWISH NEWS

T

he 71st-annual Tony
Awards, for excellence
in the Broadway theater,
will air live on CBS on Sunday,
June 11, starting at 8 p.m. EDT,
hosted by Kevin Spacey. This
year features an extraordinary
number of Jewish nominees
and works with a strong Jewish
connection. The following are
confirmed Jewish nominees in
all but the technical categories.
Note: The Best Play Tony
goes to the playwright and
the play’s producers. The Best
Musical Tony goes to the musi-
cal’s producers. The number
of nominated producers is so
large that, with one exception,
they are not included in this
article.

ACTORS

Leading actor in a musical: Ben
Platt, 23, Dear Evan Hansen.
Platt, who became well known
to movie audiences as Benji
Applebaum in the Pitch Perfect
films, is a favorite to win the
Tony.
The fourth of five chil-
dren, Ben is the son of Marc
Platt, 60, a leading showbiz
producer. The elder Platt is
Tony-nominated this year for
producing Indecent, a best play
nominee. The whole family is

32

June 8 • 2017

musical and they have a fam-
ily tradition of adapting show
tunes for family events and
singing them together (includ-
ing at Ben’s bar mitzvah).
It was almost natural for
Ben to start performing pro-
fessionally as a child, and by
age 11 he was in a national
touring of a Broadway show.
Recently, he told Seth Meyers
that at (Jewish) Camp Ramah
in California he sang the part of
Sky Masterson ( from Guys and
Dolls) in Hebrew. He treated
Meyers’ audience to a few
verses of “Luck Be a Lady” in
Hebrew.
Evan Hansen is about a
socially awkward teen who
tells a big lie to become more
popular and the ramifications
of that lie. It was difficult,
reviewers have noted, to make
sympathetic a very nervous
protagonist whose lie exploits a
family’s grief. But, they all add,
Platt has masterfully risen to
that challenge. He told the NY
Times: “I have had a struggle
with anxiety, always, and as a
proud Jew, that’s not a surpris-
ing thing. But I don’t think I
have as much trouble as [Evan]
does connecting with people
generally — I think I’m pretty
good at that, and that’s Evan’s

jn

biggest challenge.”
Lead actress in a musical:
Bette Midler, 71, Hello, Dolly!
Critics have said that Midler
was practically born to star in
the title role and this revival
is a smash. Dolly represents a
return to Broadway for Midler
after an absence of almost
50 years. Born and raised in
Hawaii, she moved to New York
in 1965 and quickly landed a
big off-Broadway role. Then,
from 1966-1969, she played
Tzeitel, the oldest daughter in
the original run of Fiddler on
the Roof. She told CBS Sunday
Morning (May 20) that she
didn’t return to Broadway
sooner because musical shows
changed and had become
“musical theater.” Her love was
musical comedy and Hello,
Dolly! is certainly that.
She added that two years ago
she had finished a successful
run of her touring variety musi-
cal show and she was looking
for a new challenge and Dolly
fit the bill.
Midler also told Sunday
Morning that she realized she
would be judged against the
original, iconic performance by
Carol Channing. So, she sought
Channing, now 96, out and, she
said, they “had a lovely after-

noon together.”
Supporting actor, musi-
cal: Brandon Uranowitz, 30,
Falsettos. He plays Mendel,
a Jewish psychiatrist, in this
revival of a musical originally
staged in 1992. The show is
about a Jewish family and ends
with a bar mitzvah near the
deathbed of the bar mitzvah
boy’s father. Uranowitz says he
recalls practicing for his bar
mitzvah by singing “Miracle of
Judaism,” a Falsettos number.

DIRECTORS

Best Director, play: Sam
Gold, 39, A Doll’s House, Part
2 and Rebecca Taichman,
47, Indecent. Best Director,
musical: Jerry Zaks, 70, Hello,
Dolly!, and Rachel Chavkin,
37, Natasha, Pierre & The Great
Comet of 1812 and Michael
Greif, 57, Dear Evan Hansen.
Here’s a little more about
two of these directors: Gold
is the resident director of the
Roundabout Theater Company,
one of Manhattan’s leading
nonprofit theater companies.
He’s married to Amy Herzog,
41, a Pulitzer-nominated play-
wright (4000 Miles). Her grand-
father, Arthur Herzog Jr., was
a leading figure in the Detroit
jazz scene in the 1930s-1950s.

He wrote, with Billie Holiday,
such classics as “Don’t Explain”
and “God Bless the Child.”
Zaks, the son of Holocaust
survivors, has been a leading
Broadway musical director for
more than 20 years. He has two
hits now running simultane-
ously on Broadway: Hello, Dolly!,
and a musical version of the hit
1993 movie A Bronx Tale.

BEST OF

The Best Play and Best Musical
Tonys, as noted above, are
given to the show’s producers.
Here are the Jews, many nomi-
nees in their own right, associ-
ated with those “best” shows.
Best Revival, Play: The Little
Foxes, by Lillian Hellman
(1905-1984); Best Revival,
Musical: Falsettos, music and
lyrics by William Finn, now
65, and book by James Lapine,
now 68; Hello, Dolly!, music and
lyrics by Jerry Herman, now
85. Best (new) Play: Indecent, by
Paula Vogel, 65.
Indecent is about the con-
troversy surrounding the 1907
Yiddish play God of Vengeance
by Sholem Asch (1880-1957).
Asch’s play, about a Jewish
brothel owner who seeks
respectability by donating a
Torah scroll and marrying off

