With two short weeks to go before the 77th Tony Awards—set to take place, for the very first time, at Lincoln Center’s David H. Koch Theater—on Sunday evening, Anna Wintour and Bee Carrozzini hosted their joyous annual dinner fêting the best of the Broadway season.
Sprawled between the garden and parlor levels of Wintour’s Greenwich Village home, guests representing some 24 different productions mingled over cocktails before being seated, at about quarter after 8:00 p.m., for a feast of lobster gnocchi, sorbet, and—as per tradition—themed cakes created by Charlotte Neuville.
In remarks delivered during dinner, Wintour and Carrozzini offered a sweeping accounting of the last year in theater; from the head-spinning number of shows that opened (39!); to the directors who did double—or triple—duty (see: Lila Neugebauer of Appropriate and Uncle Vanya, Schele Williams of The Wiz and The Notebook, and Michael Greif of The Notebook, Hell’s Kitchen, and Days of Wine and Roses); and the dominance of American playwrights Joshua Harmon (Prayer for the French Republic), Jocelyn Bioh (Jaja’s African Hair Braiding), David Adjmi (Stereophonic), Paula Vogel (Mother Play), Amy Herzog (An Enemy of the People and Mary Jane), and Branden Jacobs Jenkins (Appropriate). So, too, did they look eagerly ahead to next season—including the imminent transfer of Cole Escola’s Oh, Mary! to Broadway’s Lyceum Theatre.
Much has already been made of the singular starriness of the 2023-2024 Broadway season, but the fact of it was almost overwhelming at last night’s dinner, as Jeremy Strong (An Enemy of the People) posed for “an Amy Herzog picture” (his words) with Rachel McAdams (Mary Jane); Sarah Paulson (Appropriate)—a vision of early summer cool in a sand-colored sheath dress and matching blazer—affectionately greeted Eddie Redmayne (Cabaret), in a natty knit; and Liev Schreiber (Doubt: A Parable) and Alicia Keys (Hell’s Kitchen) slipped discreetly into their seats mere moments before dinner service began. (Asked—quickly—what it meant to have a show that she’d been developing for over a decade be so rapturously received, Keys replied, “I could not talk to you about that in three seconds…but there’s no words.”)