Volume 3/Number 1

2000

Another Tony for Susan

Susan Stroman, AS '76, is the toast of Broadway this year, recently picking up her third Tony Award for choreography in a major musical. Stroman, who previously won Tonys for her choreography of Crazy For You and Showboat, won this year's Tony Award for her choreography of Contact, which she also created and directed.

She also was nominated for a Tony for directing Contact and for her direction and her choreography of the current revival of The Music Man.

Contact, a dance-play with themes of lonely hearts, which Stroman created with John Weidman, was this year's surprise critical and popular success. It also won the Tony for Best Musical and garnered Tony's for Boyd Gaines--best performance by a featured actor in a musical--and Karen Ziemba--best performance by a featured actress in a musical.

Terry Teachout in Time magazine says it is the vehicle that will give Stroman "the name-above-the-title standing of a Bob Fosse or Jerome Robbins."

On the official Tony Award web site, writer Randy Gener quotes Stroman as saying, "What's interesting about directing The Music Man and Contact in the same season is that the shows reflect both sides of my personality. On the one hand, I have The Music Man, which is life-affirming and family–oriented and funny...then Contact is a dark piece with very mature and adult themes. I have my musical comedy side and I have my darker side together at the same time on Broadway. It's curious how it all happened, really, but it is also emotionally very fulfilling. It's all out there."