Anna Wintour and Bee Carrozzini Toast the Best of the Theater Season With an Intimate Dinner

The theater community being as small as it is, these examples go on and on. Amber Ruffin, in striking bright pink, co-wrote Some Like It Hot with Matthew López, whose epic play The Inheritance won Burnap a Tony. Before Michael Arden revived Parade, he directed Shucked breakout Alex Newell in Once on This Island in 2017; and before Bartlett Sher revived Camelot, he directed Kimberly Akimbo star Victoria Clark’s Tony-winning performance in The Light in the Piazza back in 2005.

And then there were the looser connections. Sweeney Todd’s Annaleigh Ashford chatted with Abdul-Mateen II about working with the same dressers backstage. Pierce and playwright James Ijames (Fat Ham) sang the praises of Billy Eugene Jones, who appeared with the former in a production of Waiting for Godot. When Josh Groban huddled with Maria Friedman—whose brilliant production of Merrily We Roll Along opens on Broadway this September—did they talk about the concert production of Sweeney Todd that Friedman did in 2007, or Stephen Sondheim more generally? Jordan Roth caught up with Jordan Donica, and at 19 and 20, respectively, Kimberly Akimbo’s Justin Cooley and Gaten Matarazzo, of Sweeney Todd and Netflix’s Stranger Things, seemed to get along famously. (“This is a room of people that make me starstruck, which I don’t usually get,” Matarazzo tells me later.) And while & Juliet’s Betsy Wolfe admired playwright Amy Herzog’s (A Doll’s House) spangled black dress, Wolfe and Borle’s former Falsettos co-star Brandon Uranowitz (Leopoldstadt)—wearing a beaded purse and layered Star of David pendants from Susan Alexandra (“I mean, I’m in a very Jewish show, so I needed some Judaica”)—talked accessories with Some Like It Hot’s J. Harrison Ghee, another Tony nominee, in the smiley-face Giuseppe Zanotti slip-ons that they almost didn’t buy from Saks Off Fifth years ago.

Dinner—served downstairs at 7:30pm sharp—was hearty and seasonal: Gioja Farms burrata with Cavillion melon, aged balsamic, and market greens, followed by Joyce Farms chicken breast with spring vegetables, fingerling potatoes, and Meyer lemon. But before dessert was passed around—sorbet, berries, and theater-themed cakes by Charlotte Neuville, if you were wondering—Wintour and Carrozzini took a moment to address their guests.

“We are so thrilled to be here tonight with such an illustrious, talented crowd,” Carrozzini began. “And thank Audra—I mean thank God—the [Tonys] broadcast is back on and people across the world, or at least the Upper West Side, will be able to celebrate the wonderful and important work you all have been making this season.”

In the event that the Tonys hit “any more roadblocks” amid the Writers Guild of America strike, however, Carrozzini and Wintour decided to take matters into their own hands, and give out special Sullivan Street Theater Awards. These included prizes for “the couple most committed to making Ibsen cool again”(Herzog and her husband, Sam Gold, who will together mount Enemy of the People with Jeremy Strong next year) and “the award for least downtime during a show” (to Jessica Chastain and Ben Platt, of course, “neither of whom could be here tonight because they are still sitting on stage,” quipped Carrozzini). There were also nods to Some Like It Hot’s tireless writer-director Casey Nicholaw; Colton Ryan’s dazzling range in New York, New York; Rachel Brosnahan and Oscar Isaac’s compelling work in The Sign in Sidney Brustein’s Window; Brandy Clark and Shane McAnally’s irresistible score for Shucked; Marcel Spears’s star turn in Fat Ham; and the many actors—including Merrily We Roll Along’s effervescent Lindsay Mendez and Into the Woods’s endearing Brian d’Arcy James—who have helped to usher Sondheim’s music into a new era.

“We don’t have your vision,” Wintour concluded, “but we are theater-obsessed, and over the whole year we have marveled at the beautiful art each and every one of you have created.”

“Thank you for inviting us into your orbit tonight,” Carrozzini added. “It is truly an honor to be in your company.” Cue standing ovation, and curtain.