The evening begins with a reception at 6 PM, followed by dinner at 7 PM with a starry concert and award ceremony at 8 PM. Performers will be announced at a later date.
York producing artistic director James Morgan said in a statement, “We are delighted to be able to honor Ms. Lansbury. We have tried for a number of years to make this event happen, and this time, the stars—and this star—aligned, and we are over the moon. She is the personification of lifetime achievement in musical theatre, and the ceremony will be a part of the celebration of her 90th birthday a month before.”
The Oscar Hammerstein Award, named in honor of the prolific master lyricist, "recognizes lifetime achievement in musical theatre." Past recipients include Lynn Ahrens & Stephen Flaherty, Stephen Sondheim, Betty Comden & Adolph Green, Harold Prince, Cy Coleman, Charles Strouse, Arthur Laurents, Jerry Herman, Stephen Schwartz, Peter Stone, David Merrick, John Kander & Fred Ebb, Terrence McNally, Cameron Mackintosh, Carol Channing, Tony Walton, Joseph Stein, George S. Irving, Jerry Bock & Sheldon Harnick, Thomas Meehan, Paul Gemignani and Barbara Cook.
Winner of five Tony Awards, Lansbury made her Broadway debut in 1957 as Bert Lahr’s wife in Hotel Paradiso. In 1960 she returned to Broadway as Joan Plowright’s mother in Shelagh Delaney’s A Taste of Honey. She starred in her first musical, Anyone Can Whistle, in 1964, and in 1966 she triumphed as Mame winning her first Tony. She won Tonys for Dear World (1968), Gypsy (1974) and Sweeney Todd (1979). After a 23-year hiatus, she returned to Broadway in 2007 in Terrence McNally’s Deuce. In 2009 she won her fifth Tony Award as Madame Arcati in Noel Coward’s Blithe Spirit. She also appeared as Madame Armfeldt in Stephen Sondheim’s classic A Little Night Music (2010), and in Gore Vidal’s The Best Man (2012). In 2013 she appeared in the acclaimed Australian tour of Alfred Uhry’s Driving Miss Daisy, with James Earl Jones and Boyd Gaines.
For additional information, pricing and reservations, visit www.yorktheatre.org, or call Julie Griffith at (212) 935-5824, ext. 213, or via email at jgriffith @yorktheatre.org.
