The York Theatre Company has announced additional special guests for a concert celebration at the 32nd Oscar Hammerstein Award Gala, which will honor musical theater legend Bernadette Peters (Hello Dolly!, A Little Night Music, Gypsy) with the 2024 Oscar Hammerstein Award for Lifetime Achievement in Musical Theater and producer Ted Snowdon with The York Theatre Company Founders’ Award at the 32nd Oscar Hammerstein Award Gala, to be held on Monday evening, November 11, 2024 at The Edison Ballroom (240 West 47th Street).
The 32nd Oscar Hammerstein Award Gala concert celebration will be hosted by Michael Urie, currently starring in the Broadway production of Once Upon Mattress and will feature live entertainment with special guest appearances. Joining the previously announced Alex Newell (Shucked), Andrew Rannells (The Book of Mormon), Jelani Remy (Back to the Future), are Klea Blackhurst, Victor Garber (Sweeney Todd), Julie Halston (Our Town), James Lapine, Marilyn Maye, Eva Noblezeda (Hadestown), Randy Rainbow, Elizabeth Stanley (_Jagged Little Pill)), and more. (Scheduled to appear). Stephen DeAngelis will direct the evening. Stephen DeAngelis will direct the evening.
Tickets at a variety of levels are now on sale at https://yorktheatre.org/support/oscar-hammerstein.
The Oscar Hammerstein Award is named in honor of the legendary lyricist and librettist who helped shape American musical theatre through his collaborations with a number of different composers and writers. His contributions to such landmark musicals as Show Boat, Oklahoma!, South Pacific, and Carousel are a legacy for all time. The award was created in 1988 by Janet Hayes Walker, Founding Artistic Director of The York Theatre Company, and is presented with the endorsement of the Hammerstein family and the Rodgers and Hammerstein Organization. Its purpose is to recognize significant lifetime achievement in musical theatre and is presented at a gala evening held for the benefit of The York Theatre Company.
Past recipients of the Oscar Hammerstein Award include 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, Barbara Cook, Paul Gemignani, Lynn Ahrens & Stephen Flaherty, Angela Lansbury, Joel Grey, Tom Jones & Harvey Schmidt, Susan Stroman, André De Shields, Richard Maltby, Jr. & David Shire, Leslie Uggams and most recently Patti LuPone.
Bernadette Peters (2024 Oscar Hammerstein Award Recipient) Throughout her illustrious career, Bernadette Peters has dazzled audiences and critics with her performances on stage, film, and television, in concert, and on recordings. She has garnered numerous accolades including three Tony Awards, a Golden Globe, four Emmy and four Grammy Award nominations, and a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Best known for her work on stage as one of Broadway’s most critically acclaimed performers, Bernadette just concluded a highly successful West End debut in the Cameron Mackintosh production of Old Friends, celebrating the life and work of Stephen Sondheim. It was recently announced the production will transfer to Broadway for the 2025 season. Bernadette has starred as Dolly Gallagher Levi in the hit musical Hello, Dolly!. She also starred in City Center’s Encores! production A Bed and a Chair: A New York Love Affair featuring the music of Stephen Sondheim and orchestrations by Wynton Marsalis. Prior to that, she starred on Broadway in Stephen Sondheim’s A Little Night Music and Follies. Peters garnered both the Tony Award and Drama Desk Award for her performance in the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical Song and Dance. She also won a Tony Award for her performance in Annie Get Your Gun. She received Tony nominations for her outstanding performances in Sam Mendes’ critically acclaimed revival of Gypsy, in Neil Simon’s The Goodbye Girl, Stephen Sondheim’s Pulitzer Prize-winning musical Sunday in the Park with George, the Jerry Herman/Gower Champion ode to the movies, Mack and Mabel, and the Leonard Bernstein/Comden and Green musical On the Town. In addition to these honors, Peters earned a Drama Desk nomination for her unforgettable portrayal of the Witch in Stephen Sondheim’s Into the Woods. She also enjoys a career which boasts an impressive list of television credits, most recently the Apple TV+ series, “High Desert” and a guest-starring role on the NBC-TV series, “Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist,” for which she earned an Emmy nomination. The popular series was made into a TV movie musical titled Zoey’s Extraordinary Christmas for the Roku Channel. Other TV appearances include The CW’s “Katy Keene,” CBS All Access’ “The Good Fight,” and Amazon Prime’s Golden Globe-winning series “Mozart in the Jungle”. Additional television credits include NBC’s “Smash,” and ‘s “Grey’s Anatomy” and “Ugly Betty” In addition to starring in the Lifetime TV movie Living Proof, Peters has lit up the silver screen in over 30 films throughout her distinguished career. She received a Golden Globe Award for her memorable performance in Pennies from Heaven. Other film credits include The Jerk, The Longest Yard, Silent Movie, Annie, Pink Cadillac, Slaves of New York, Woody Allen’s Alice, Impromptu, It Runs in the Family, Coming Up Roses, The Broken Hearts Gallery, and most recently a surprise appearance in the popular Jonathan Larson biopic, tick, tick…BOOM! Bernadette has recorded six solo albums, including the Grammy-nominated I’ll Be Your Baby Tonight, Sondheim, Etc.: Bernadette Peters Live at Carnegie Hall, and Bernadette Peters Loves Rodgers & Hammerstein, in addition to numerous original Broadway cast recordings. Peters devotes her time and talents to numerous events that benefit Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS. Her “pet project” Broadway Barks, co-founded with Mary Tyler Moore, is an annual star-studded dog and cat adoption event that benefits shelter animals in the New York City and tri-state area. The American Theater Wing honored her efforts and awarded her the Isabelle Stevenson Award, which recognizes an individual from the theatre community who has made a substantial contribution of volunteered time and effort on behalf of one or more humanitarian, social service, or charitable organizations, regardless of whether such organizations relate to the theatre. This past November, while in London, Bernadette presented West End Woofs, a sister event to Broadway Barks that she co-hosted with her good friend Elaine Paige. The event is the first of its kind in the UK, fostering a spirit of community among animal shelters and rescue groups. She is a New York Times best-selling author of three children’s books: Broadway Barks, Stella Is a Star, and Stella and Charlie: Friends Forever. All of her proceeds from the sale of these books benefit Broadway Barks. Peters resides in New York and Los Angeles with her rescue dogs, Charlie and Rosalia.
The York Theatre Company Founders’ Award recognizes individuals who have made a significant impact on the sustainability of the arts.
Past recipients of the award include The York’s Founding Artistic Director Janet Hayes Walker, W. David McCoy, Sarah Tod Smith, Molly Grose, Robert Goldberg, Gerald F. Fisher, Betty Cooper Wallerstein, Riki Kane Larimer, Elisa Loti Stein,Ted Chapin and most recently Jamie deRoy.
Ted Snowdon (2024 York Theatre Company Founders’ Award Recipient) has been a supporter of Jim Morgan and the York Theatre Company for the past 30 years. He started going to Broadway musicals in 1956 and even appeared at Goodspeed in the world premiere of Man of La Mancha when he was nineteen. For all his love of musicals, Ted has mostly been a producer of comedies and dramas, both on Broadway and Off-, also working with top non-profit theaters. Twenty years ago, he developed Stephen Temperley’s play with music Souvenir here at the York before moving it with star Judy Kaye to Broadway. Ted’s first Broadway producing credit was 1979’s Tony Award-winning play The Elephant Man. Subsequent producing highlights include Katori Hall’s The Mountaintop starring Samuel L. Jackson and Angela Bassett, Donald Margulies’s Time Stands Still with Laura Linney, Douglas Carter Beane’s The Little Dog Laughed with Tony winner Julie White, Neil LaBute’s Reasons to Be Pretty, Lynn Nottage’s Pulitzer Prize-winning Sweat, Robert Schenkkan’s The Great Society with Brian Cox as LBJ, and Selina Fillinger’s wicked White House farce POTUS. He was a co-producer of two Tony Award-winning Best Musicals, Spring Awakening and A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder. He has presented works by Terrence McNally (Tyne Daly in Master Class), Chita Rivera in his musical of The Visit, The Stendhal Syndrome with Richard Thomas), Charles Busch (The Tribute Artist, The Confession of Lily Dare, the recent Ibsen’s Ghost), A.R. Gurney (Black Tie and The Fourth Wall), and Jonathan Tolins (The Twilight of the Golds, The Last Sunday in June, Secrets of the Trade, and his smash Buyer & Cellar starring Michael Urie). Other Off-Broadway work includes Michael McKeever’s Daniel’s Husband, Clarence Coo’s On That Day in Amsterdam, Mike Bartlett’s Cock, David Ives’s Mere Mortals, and David Cromer’s 2009 staging of Wilder’s Our Town. Last season he proudly co-produced Robert Montano’s solo hit Small, as well as Stephen Sondheim’s final musical collaboration (with David Ives and Joe Mantello), the provocative Here We Are. Ted sits on the boards of Primary Stages and The Glimmerglass Festival. He has long championed the arts and LGBTQ causes.
Michael Urie (Host) can currently be seen in season 2 of the Emmy nominated comedy series “Shrinking” opposite Jason Segel and Harrison Ford for Apple TV+, in the film Goodrich with Michael Keaton, and on Broadway starring with Sutton Foster in the hit revival of Once Upon a Mattress. On stage, his most recent credits include the Broadway revival of Spamalot (Helen Hayes nomination), the new Broadway comedy Chicken and Biscuits, the Public Theater’s revival of Tony Kushner’s A Bright Room Called Day, and the Broadway premiere of Bess Wohl’s Grand Horizons. Prior to that, he starred in the Tony Award-nominated Broadway revival of Harvey Fierstein’s Torch Song, following his critically acclaimed performance in the off-Broadway production at Second Stage, earning Lucille Lortel Award and Drama League Award nominations. Michael originated the role of Alex More in Jonathan Tolins’ Buyer & Cellar Off-Broadway, on tour, and in London, for which he received the Drama Desk Award, Clarence Derwent Award, the Lucille Lortel Award, and the LA Drama Critics Award, plus nominations for the Drama League and Outer Critics Circle Awards. More New York theatre credits include How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying (Broadway), Once Upon a Mattress (Encores!), Jane Anger (New Ohio Theatre), The Government Inspector (Red Bull, Drama League and OCC nominations), Shows for Days (LCT), Homos, or Everyone in America (Obie Award), The Cherry Orchard (CSC), Angels in America (Signature), The Temperamentals (Lucille Lortel, Drama Desk, and Theatre World awards, Drama League nomination), The Revenger’s Tragedy (Red Bull), and Another Vermeer (HB Playwrights). Regionally, Urie has worked for the Kennedy Center, Shakespeare Theatre Company (Washington, DC), Two River, the Old Globe, Vineyard Playhouse, South Coast Rep, Seattle Rep, Folger Shakespeare, Barrington Stage, Hyde Park (Austin), and The Blank (L.A.). As a director, Michael helmed Bright Colors and Bold Patterns off-Broadway. He is a producer of Pride Plays, an annual LGBTQIA theatre festival. On film he has been seen in Single All the Way (Netflix), Summoning Sylvia, Swan Song, Lavender, He’s Way More Famous Than You (which he also directed), Thank You for Judging (co-director/executive producer), The Extinction of Fireflies, Beverly Hills Chihuahua, WTC View, Jeremy Fink and the Meaning of Life, Abducted, The Decoy Bride, Petunia, Such Good People, The Hyperglot (director), and Grantham & Rose_ (executive producer). TV: “Modern Family,” “Younger,” “The Good Fight,” “The Good Wife,” “The Bite,” Hot in Cleveland,” “Workaholics,” “Partners,” and four seasons as Marc St. James on “Ugly Betty.” He hosted the Discovery+ competition show “Clipped” with Martha Stewart as well as four seasons of Logo’s “Cocktails and Classics.” Web series: “What’s Your Emergency” (director). Training: Juilliard.
The York Theatre Company “Where Musicals Come to Life,” is the only theatre in New York City—and one of very few in the world—dedicated to developing and fully producing new musicals and preserving notable shows from the past. For over five decades, York’s intimate, imaginative style of producing both original and classic musicals has resulted in critical acclaim and recognition from artists and audiences alike. Since 1997, The York has focused on new musicals in its Mainstage Series—most of them world, American, or New York premieres—by some of the field’s most esteemed creators and has also helped launch the careers of many talented new writers. Over 45 cast recordings from York Theatre Company productions are now available, including its acclaimed revival of Closer Than Ever (2013 Off-Broadway Alliance Award for Best Revival). Commercial transfers of such York premieres as The Musical of Musicals (The Musical!), Souvenir (Tony Award Nomination for actress Judy Kaye), and Jolson & Company, and revivals of Pacific Overtures and Sweeney Todd (four Tony Nominations including Best Revival) have all showcased the importance of The York and its programs.
Recent York productions have included A Sign of the Times (New World Stages), The Jerusalem Syndrome, Vanities—The Musical, Hoagy Carmichael’s Stardust Road, Penelope: or How the Odyssey Was Really Written, Cheek to Cheek: Irving Berlin in Hollywood, A Taste of Things to Come, Marry Harry, and Rothschild & Sons. The critically acclaimed musical_Yank! received its Off-Broadway debut at The York, and subsequently to rave reviews in London—as did York’s Rothschild & Sons. The hit musical Cagney received its York premiere in 2015, transferring to the Westside Theatre for over 15 months. In 2017, Desperate Measures_ received a total of 15 award nominations (and three wins) that included Best Musical from the Lucille Lortel, Outer Critics Circle, Drama Desk, and Off-Broadway Alliance and subsequently transferred across town to New World Stages. The York is the recipient of a special Drama Desk Award for “Developing and Producing New Musicals,” a special Outer Critics Circle Award for “50 Years of Producing New and Classic Musicals.” Due to a flood in their home of 30 years at Saint Peter’s Church in January 2021, The York is currently producing at The Theatre at St. Jean’s at 76th Street and Lexington Avenue.
