GOOD MORNING BROADWAY FANS! Today marks 30 days till Broadway’s Biggest night of the year…The 70th Annual Tony Awards. In honor of that, New York Broadway Tours once again is hosting our 2nd annual Top 30 countdown of some of our favorite performances from the past telecast. In addition, we want you guys to be involved to help choose some of your favorite performances and we can add it to the lineup.
Kicking off our Tony Countdown at #30 is a Musical about a composer / lyricist the Theatre World actually did not know much about…. Edward Kleban (who shared a Tony and Pulitzer Prize for Drama with the late?Marvin Hamlisch for creating the lyrics for a little known musical called A Chorus Line). He passed away in 1987 from throat cancer and his story was told in an autobiographical memorial tribute called A CLASS ACT. It was written by Linda Klein (Kleban’s longtime companion) and Lonny Price (who also directed and started as Kleban).
From the 2001 telecast, Tony nominees Lonny Price and Randy Graff, future Tony winner Sara Ramierez, and cast members perform a medley of Edward’s powerful songs including FOLLOW YOUR STAR, BETTER, and SELF PORTRAIT.
A CLASS ACT first premiered Off Broadway at Manhattan Theatre Club in 2000 before transferring over to Broadway’s Ambassador Theatre in 2001 where it played a total of 135 performances. It was nominated for 5 Tony Awards (including Best Musical) loosing all of it’s categories.
A beautiful tribute to a talented and inspirational man that believed in his dreams. RIP Edward Kleban.
?#?AClassAct? ?#?AClassActTheMusical? ?#?EdwardKleban? ?#?TonyAwards??#?RIPEdwardKleban? ?#?Countdowntothetonys? ?#?NYBroadwayTours??#?NYBroadwayToursTonyCountdown?
