The Daily Distraction: The Kennedy Center Honors' Pitch-Perfect Tribute to Barbara Cook | Playbill

Video The Daily Distraction: The Kennedy Center Honors' Pitch-Perfect Tribute to Barbara Cook Audra McDonald, Patti LuPone, Glenn Close, Kelli O'Hara, Sutton Foster, and more took part in the medley for the soprano.

These are frightening times, and we all must take necessary precautions as we social distance and self-isolate. That being said, you deserve a break every now and then. Welcome to Playbill's Daily Distraction.

Day 37: Then There Was Music and Wonderful Roses

Ten years ago today, Barbara Cook opened her final Broadway show: Sondheim on Sondheim. The retrospective revue earned the performer her third Tony Award nomination (having previously won for The Music Man). As we remember her many career triumphs, take a moment (11 minutes, to be exact) to revisit this perfect tribute at the Kennedy Center Honors.

The performance from the 2011 ceremony features a parade of fellow sopranos and Broadway stars: Kelli O'Hara (who welcomed Cook to the stage at her Carnegie Hall concert, marking one of Cook's final public appearances), fellow Marian Paroo Rebecca Luker, Marian-to-be Sutton Foster, Patti LuPone, Glenn Close, Laura Osnes, and Audra McDonald.

Each moment builds off the previous, culminating in the curtain rising to reveal a choir joining in for the final verse of Candide's "Make Our Garden Grow."

For these 11 minutes, everything is perfect. The sound mix amplifying Audra on the Soprano 2 line is perfect. Fellow honoree Meryl Streep emoting is perfect. Glenn Close and Patti LuPone sharing a stage is perfect. Being neither pure nor wise nor good has never sounded so perfect.

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