Cheyenne Jackson, Vanessa Williams, Norm Lewis and More Will Honor Barbara Cook

By Andrew Gans
08 Aug 2011

Cheyenne Jackson
Cheyenne Jackson
Photo by Karl Simone

The award-winning York Theatre Company will honor Tony and Grammy Award winner Barbara Cook with the 20th Oscar Hammerstein Award for Lifetime Achievement in Musical Theatre Nov. 21 at the Edison Ballroom.

The evening will directed by Philip Wm. McKinley (Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark, The Boy from Oz) with music direction by Patrick Vaccariello (Gypsy, West Side Story).

Grammy winner Michael Feinstein will host the evening, which will boast appearances by Jason Danieley (Next to Normal, Curtains, The Full Monty), Cheyenne Jackson ("Glee," "30 Rock," Finian’s Rainbow, Xanadu), Norm Lewis (Porgy and Bess, Sondheim on Sondheim, The Little Mermaid), Tony nominee Marin Mazzie (Next to Normal, Ragtime, Passion), Tony nominee Euan Morton (Sondheim on Sondheim, Taboo), Tony nominee Emily Skinner (Billy Elliot, Side Show, The Full Monty), multiple Emmy, Tony and Grammy nominee Vanessa Williams ("Desperate Housewives," "Ugly Betty," Sondheim on Sondheim, Into the Woods) and Tony nominee Tom Wopat (Catch Me If You Can, Sondheim on Sondheim, Annie Get Your Gun, "The Dukes of Hazzard").

Jeff Hochhauser (My Vaudeville Man!) will be writing continuity for the evening.

The Oscar Hammerstein Award was created by York's founder, Janet Hayes Walker, and is named in honor of the legendary lyricist who helped shape the American musical theatre through his collaborations with a number of different composers and writers. The Oscar Hammerstein Award Gala is the major fundraising event of the York Theatre Company, and is presented with the endorsement of the Rodgers & Hammerstein Organization and the Hammerstein Family. Past recipients include Thomas Meehan, Stephen Sondheim, Betty Comden & Adolph Green, Harold Prince, Cy Coleman, Charles Strouse, Arthur Laurents, Jerry Herman, Stephen Schwartz, Peter Stone, David Merrick, John Kander & Fred Ebb, Terrence McNally, Cameron Mackintosh, Carol Channing, Tony Walton, Joseph Stein, George S. Irving and Jerry Bock & Sheldon Harnick.

Cook, a Broadway legend who won the 1958 Tony Award (Featured Actress) for playing Marian the Librarian in the original production of The Music Man, is a Grammy winner, and received a Grammy nomination for the DRG album "Count Your Blessings." In 2010, she was nominated for a Featured Actress Tony Award for her appearance in Sondheim on Sondheim. She originated the role of Amalia in the Broadway premiere of the musical She Loves Me, and was Cunegonde in the original production of Leonard Bernstein's Candide.

For more information on the gala, including pricing and reservations, call (212) 935-5824, ext. 215.