I’m going to let you in on a Broadway secret. It’s supposed to be a surprise for Sunday’s telecast, so I’m asking you to keep it between ourselves.
A special Tony honor will be presented to . . . Mayor Bloomberg.
I’m told the mayor will appear on the telecast to accept his honor. Given his propensity to nanny us into good behavior, maybe he’ll dress up like Mary Poppins.
This is the second time the Tonys have honored a New York City mayor. John Lindsay got a special Tony Award in 1973 because, as mayor, he advocated building new theaters, including Lincoln Center. Never mind that he also ran the city into the ground: He loved to attend first nights, and his friends included a number of showbiz people.
But Abe Beame, who was close to the Shuberts, didn’t get one. And Ed Koch certainly didn’t get one — he was hated by the theater world for tearing down the Helen Hayes and the Morosco theaters to make way for the Marriott Marquis.
Rudy Giuliani deserved one — for cleaning up 42nd Street and rallying the city after the attack on the World Trade Center. But he was “controversial” and “divisive,” so he didn’t get one either.
So why Bloomberg?
I hear City Hall made the case to the Broadway League and the American Theater Wing, the two organizations that run the Tonys, that, under Mayor Mike, tourism has hit record levels — 52 million visitors this past year alone, many of them taking in a Broadway show.
Bloomberg’s City Hall supporters thought it would be nice if Broadway acknowledged this by giving the mayor his very own Tony Award.
But the League and the Wing weren’t willing to go that far. A Tony honor, OK — but not an actual Tony Award.
“He didn’t get enough votes to get a special Tony Award,” says a member of the administration committee. “But we had to do something. We can’t just reject the mayor. So we gave him a Tony honor instead.”
“A Tony Award is for someone in the theater — not a politician,” says another Tony source.
There’s still some grumbling about honoring the mayor. Some producers and theater owners object to those bike and pedestrian lanes he laid out all over Times Square. It’s made traffic a nightmare, and many of Broadway’s patrons drive in from the suburbs.
“I think the mayor has been great for the city, but every time I get hit by a bike, I want to vote him out of office,” says a veteran producer.
“Times Square is all tangled up,” says another.
Broadway also fought the mayor on his plan to build a stadium on the West Side of Manhattan. Taking the lead was Gerald Schoenfeld, the late chairman of the Shubert Organization. He argued that stadium traffic on game days would make it impossible for theatergoers to get into the city in a reasonable amount of time. The stadium would, in effect, cut into Broadway’s business. Schoenfeld and others aligned against the project and won the battle. Funding for the stadium was voted down in 2005.
Still, tourism is the bread-and-butter of Broadway these days, and there’s no question that the Mayor has maintained New York City’s status as one of the great tourist destinations in the world.
So for that, Broadway will give him a little salute on Sunday night. But as I said, it’s meant to be a surprise.
Mum’s the word!
BY the way, the mayor appeared at the luncheon for Tony nominees last week. He extolled his friend Bette Midler for her tree-planting initiative. She hopes to plant 1 million trees by 2017. That’s all well and good, but the acknowledgment was a little awkward, since Midler and her play — “I’ll Eat You Last” — were ignored by the Tonys.
“That’s some good advance work!” snickered a source.