"Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for being such a wonderful audience this afternoon. If I may take just a moment of your time, I would like to share something with you.

"The 1996 Tony Award nominations were announced on Monday [May 6], and I applaud all my fellow nominees and send them many congratulations.

"However, flattered as I am, and honored to be also nominated, I have to say how deeply sad I am to be the only nominee in this extraordinarily gifted company.

"Victor/Victoria is a collaboration between designers, choreographer, director, cast and crew. An extremely happy and successful collaboration which makes it especially sad that so many of my colleagues have been ignored by this year's nominating process. I could not have done this alone.

"I have searched my conscience and my heart and find that I cannot accept this nomination, and prefer to stand instead with the egregiously overlooked Tony Roberts; Michael Nouri; Rachel York; Greg Jbara; Robin Wagner, who designed our sets; Willa Kim, who gave us our costumes; Jules Fisher and Peggy Eisenhauer, for our lighting; Rob Marshall, our choreographer; [composer] Henry Mancini; [lyricist] Leslie Bricusse; [co-composer] Frank Wildhorn; [director/librettist] Blake Edwards [who is also Andrews' husband]; our producers and 75 other members of the Victor/Victoria family. "We stand together in celebration of our show and of audiences like you who stand for us. Thank you."