Tony Awards

NEW YORK – The set-in-Chicago staging of “Clybourne Park” won Best Play, and the stageplay-based-on-the-movie “Once,” won Best Musical at the 66th Annual Tony Awards on Sunday night. “Once” took home eight Tony Awards, while its rival “Newsies the Musical’ won Best Score and Best Choreography.

CHICAGO – The biggest and most talked about musical to hit Broadway in years will have a mission in Chicago come December 2012. “The Book of Mormon,” winner of 9 Tony Awards this year including Best Musical, will be coming to the Bank of America Theater in downtown Chicago for at least a 12 week run.

CHICAGO – “I been in the blues all my life. I’m still delivering ‘cause I got a long memory,” Muddy Waters once recounted to a reporter. Although the narrative catharsis once offered by the likes of Charlie Patton and Bo Carter may have given way to the stylized pulse of R&B, its placement in America’s ever-ripening counterculture is worth the recollection. And luckily for Chicago, it is a stronghold that is now making a timely wake-up call on the Northlight stage, with enough sweat and sizzle to heat a bass line.

CHICAGO – There are few plot archetypes that receive as much in the way of production funding as that which examines- and often heralds- the business of Broadway. From the trying personal life of Fanny Brice to the eruption of a chorus player on 42nd Street, musicals have often reveled to the avidity of their own founts.

CHICAGO – The 62nd-annual Tony Awards, which were held on Sunday night, reflect a diverse but weak year for original theatre. Revivals bested originals nine to two.