TV Exclusive: Tony Honors Joan Marcus - A Tony Awards Special Feature

Every year the TONY AWARDS Committee chooses special people to recognize and honor from the community, who have contributed in a significant way to life, craft and achievements, bettering The Great White Way that is Broadway. This year, they are Joe Benincasa of The Actors Fund, General Manager Charlotte Wilcox and Photographer Joan Marcus. These honors will be presented at the Tony Honors Cocktail Party, a private reception, on Monday, June 2nd at the Paramount Hotel's Diamond Horseshoe, attended by industry insiders and the press.

BroadwayWorld.com thought it would be interesting to go a little more 'in-depth' about the recipients, to help you better understand their being chosen and to look more closely into their lives, worlds and work. In addition, we wanted them to be interviewed by someone with whom they shared some sort of history.

First up, is Photographer Joan Marcus. We reached out to Richard Jay-Alexander, who has been both a friend and business associate from the early beginnings of both their careers.

We think you'll agree that their chemistry shows and that you will enjoy this uniquely relaxed style of interview and tour of the career of Joan Marcus, filmed and edited by Nicole Rosky and Becky Rosky.

Here is our EXCLUSIVE in-depth interview, done at Marcus' studio in the heart of Chelsea, and you can click here to view our SPOTLIGHT ON: JOAN MARCUS - Photographic Highlights of a Stellar Career.

Over the last twenty-five years, Joan Marcus has photographed almost 300 Broadway shows and hundreds of productions off-Broadway, at regional theaters and on national tours across the country. In the years preceding, she served as the house photographer for the Kennedy Center, and also worked with other DC-based theater companies. Her work is theatrical, constantly alive and imaginative. Through Joan's eyes photographs of plays and musicals have wallpapered the city and country; from newspapers and magazines to television and the internet, from train platforms to Shubert Alley, from Playbill covers to Times Square billboards.

Richard Jay-Alexander is enjoying a 39-year career that began as an actor-singer-dancer and matriculated into directing and producing. He is best known for the twelve years he spent working for Cameron Mackintosh as Executive Director of his North American Company. He was the Executive Producer for such shows as Les Miserables, The Phantom of the Opera, Miss Saigon and others. Richard directed 11 productions of Les Miserables across the globe and has worked in film, television, commercials, on concert stages and in recording studios with some of the greatest artists of our time, including Johnny Mathis, Barbra Streisand, Bette Midler, Bernadette Peters, Brian Stokes Mitchell, Norm Lewis, IL VOLO, IL DIVO, Kristin Chenoweth, Polly Bergan, Lea Michele and countless others.

The Tony Honors for Excellence in the Theatre were established in 1990 and are awarded annually to institutions, individuals and/or organizations that have demonstrated extraordinary achievement in theatre, but are not eligible in any of the established Tony Award categories.