This year's Astaire Award winners – announced May 15 – include Cry Baby's Spencer Liff (Best Male Dancer on Broadway), In the Heights' Karen Olivo (Best Female Dancer on Broadway), Cry Baby choreographer Rob Ashford (Best Choreography on Broadway) and "Step up 2: The Streets" choreographer Dave Scott, Hi–Hat and Jamal Sims (Best Choreography in Film).
In addition to the named winners who will be in attendance, nine-time Tony Award winner Tommy Tune will receive the 2008 Douglas Watt Lifetime Achievement Award. Stage and screen actress Brooke Shields will present Tune with the first-ever Douglas Watt Lifetime Achievement Award.
Joining the 2008 honorees will be Savion Glover, former Astaire dancing partners Jane Powell and Arlene Dahl, singer-songwriter Sylvia Tosun and vocalist Anna Bergman. Broadway veteran Lee Roy Reams will direct the evening's entertainment.
The 2008 Fred & Adele Astaire Awards gala takes place in the Grand Ballroom of the Manhattan Center Studios. A cocktail reception and seated dinner will precede the awards ceremony and performances.
Established in 1982, the Fred & Adele Astaire Awards (formerly known as The Astaire Awards) recognize outstanding achievement in dance on Broadway each season. The award was established with the cooperation of Fred Astaire to honor him and his sister, Adele, who starred with her brother in ten Broadway musicals between 1917 and 1931. A nine-time Tony Award winner, director-choreographer-actor Tune has helped create such Broadway shows as Nine, My One & Only, A Day in Hollywood/A Night in the Ukraine, The Will Rogers Follies and Grand Hotel. He helmed Off-Broadway's The Club and Cloud Nine, and he spent two years starring in the Las Vegas production of the spectacular EFX at the MGM Grand Hotel, where he was awarded Best Production Star of the Year in 2001. Tune was recently seen in the national tour of Dr. Dolittle.
Tickets range $350-$500. A limited number of seats are available at $50 for balcony seating for the awards and performance. Proceeds benefit The Auditory Oral School of New York. Tickets and further information are available by phoning (212) 655-9377.
