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'Avenue Q' Wins Best Book, Score Tonys

Posted on: Sunday, 6 June 2004, 06:00 CDT

NEW YORK - "Avenue Q," the cheeky little musical that uses puppets, four-letter words and catchy, jinglelike tunes, received Tonys Sunday for the best book and score on Broadway.

"When we started writing `Avenue Q,' Jeff was an intern and I was a temp," said one of the songwriters, Robert Lopez. "Our lives kinda sucked so we came up with an idea for a show about people like us whose lives all kinda suck."

"But we're here to tell you as living proof that things get better. L and Carol just gave us the Tony Award," said an exuberant Jeff Marx after Carol Channing and LL Cool J gave them the prize.

Just before announcing the award, the Broadway legend and rapper did a duet that had the audience roaring and led host Hugh Jackman to crack later: "This just in - Carol Channing has just been arrested for a drive-by."

"Assassins," Stephen Sondheim's sardonic musical about presidential killers, picked up four Tonys, including one for Michael Cerveris, who portrays John Wilkes Booth in the show.

"You don't have to kill somebody to get something like this. You can just pretend to on Broadway," joked Cerveris, winner of the award for featured actor in a musical.

The show also won for direction-musical, Joe Mantello (who won in the play category last year for "Take Me Out"), lighting design (Jules Fisher and Peggy Eisenhauer) and orchestrations (Michael Starobin).

Featured acting prizes went to Audra McDonald, her fourth Tony in 10 years, this time for her role as the hardworking wife in the revival of "A Raisin in the Sun," and to Brian F. O'Byrne, who plays a serial killer in "Frozen."

An emotional McDonald said, "The only thing I want ever wanted to do was be on Broadway." She thanked the cast, her family and said, "This belongs to Lorraine Hansberry," the play's author.

Anika Noni Rose won the featured-actress prize for her role as the defiant daughter in "Caroline, or Change."

"Wicked," a lavish look at the "Wizard of Oz" witches, was celebrated for its spectacle, picking up two design prizes: Eugene Lee for his gargantuan sets for the $14 million musical, and Susan Hilferty for the ornate costumes.

Jack O'Brien received the director/play award, for Lincoln Center Theater's limited engagement of Shakespeare's "Henry IV."

"I was so convinced, I talked myself out of this by repeating my mantra, `We're a classic and we're closed,'" said O'Brien, who directed last year's Tony-winning musical "Hairspray."

The regional theater award was presented to the Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park. James M. Nederlander, patriarch of the family which operates nine Broadway theaters, was awarded a lifetime achievement prize.

It was a busy year with 39 productions opening on Broadway during the 2003-2004 season, compared to 36 shows the previous 12 months. Grosses were up, too, from $721 million to $771 million, but so were ticket prices. Attendance reached 11.61 million, an increase from 11.42 million a year ago, but still not as high as the 11.89 million during the season before the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

If there was no universally acclaimed, mega-musical such as "The Producers" or "Hairspray," there were several high-profile successes. Besides "Wicked," audiences flocked to the revival of "A Raisin in the Sun," with hip-hop mogul Sean Combs the main box-office draw.

"Avenue Q" was the first musical of the season to recoup its investment, a modest $3.5 million (well, modest compared to the price tag for "Wicked") and theatergoers made such limited engagements as Lincoln Center Theater's two Shakespeare revivals, "Henry IV" and "King Lear," hot tickets, too.

The Tony winners in 21 categories were chosen by 735 theater professionals and journalists.

The Tonys, officially known as the Antoinette Perry Awards, were founded in 1947 by the Wing, which runs educational and charitable programs. The organization, which Perry headed during World War II, now oversees the Tonys with the League of American Theatres and Producers, an industry trade group.

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