Rock Of Ages Tony-nominated star Constantine Maroulis, Tony Award-winner (for Gypsy) Laura Benanti and her husband Steven Pasquale (Reasons To Be Pretty) and Tony-nominated Judy Kuhn (Les Miz, Chess, Rags, She Loves Me) were among the Broadway honorees and performers at the Thursday June 25th Inside Broadway Broadway Beacon Awards at The Players Club, 16 Gramercy Park South.
Fox 5 TV News Entertainment Reporter Julie Chang emceed the ceremonies.
Inside Broadway, the acclaimed theatre for young audiences, which has introduced musical theatre to more than 750,000 children in its 26-year history (most recently its spring tour of the rock musical Smokey Joe's Café: the songs of Leiber and Stoller, to almost 40 schools in New York City, Long Island and, for the first time, Westchester) presents annual awards to performers who have participated in their events or support arts education and theatre for young audiences.
Inside Broadway presents unique, edited 50-minute professional productions of musical theatre classics, directed especially for children. Its 2008 school tour was the delightful You're A Good Man, Charlie Brown, and the previous year featured the 50th anniversary production of Rodgers and Hammerstein's Cinderella. Other productions of Inside Broadway have included Bye Bye Birdie, On the Town, The Pirates of Penzance, Kiss Me, Kate, Sophisticated Ladies, Irving Berlin's Land That I Love and Free to Be You and Me. All shows provide student study guides, teacher lesson plans. Other Inside Broadway programs include "Build A Musical," where teaching artists work with children to create their own musical theatre; and "Creating the Magic," a demonstration by the production team of a current Broadway show at a Broadway theatre, which in May 2008 was Hairspray, of how it is created. Inside Broadway has received much critical praise: its production of Richard Rodgers' Broadway caused the New York Times to say "Rodgers continues to enchant and entertain, and he couldn't ask for better cheerleaders, in all senses of the word."
Inside Broadway receives substantial and ongoing funding from several government agencies including the New York City Department of Education; New York State Office of Children and Family Services; New York City Department of Cultural Affairs; New York City Department For the Aging: New York City Department of Youth and Community Development; New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation and New York State Department of Education; New York City Council: Christine Quinn, Speaker, Domenic Recchia, Chair Cultural Affairs Committee and Council Members Joseph Addabbo, Jr., Tony Avella, Anthony Como, Erik Martin Dilan, Lew Fidler, Dan Garodnick, Eric Gioia, Vincent Gentile, Sara Gonzalez, Melinda Katz, Michael McMahon, Annabel Palma, Joel Rivera, Larry Seabrook, Helen Sears, James Vacca and Thomas White, Jr. New York State Assembly Members Peter Abbate, Michael Benedetto, Jonathan Bing, Barbara M. Clark, Vivian E. Cook, Adriano Espaillat, Michael Gianaris, Richard Gottfried, Rhoda Jacobs, Brian Kavanagh, Micah Kellner, Felix Ortiz, Mike Spano, Michele Titus, Mark Weprin and Ellen Young; New York State Senators Andrew Lanza, John Flanagan, George Onorato and Tom Duane.
