Bernadette Peters And Ted Snowdon to be Honored at York Theatre Company Gala

The York Theatre Company will honor musical theater legend Bernadette Peters (Hello, Dolly!, A Little Night Music, Gypsy) with the 2024 Oscar Hammerstein Award for Lifetime Achievement in Musical Theater and producer Ted Snowdon (Patriots, Spring Awakening, York's Souvenir) with The York Theatre Company Founders' Award at the 32nd Oscar Hammerstein Award Gala to be held on Monday evening, November 11, 2024 at The Edison Rooftop (223 West 46th Street). The evening will be directed by the York's Associate Artistic Director Gerry McIntyre.

Tickets are now on sale at www.yorktheatre.org. For further information, including sponsorship opportunities, please email Marie Grace LaFerrara at mlaferrara@yorktheatre.org.

“What becomes a legend most? Well, we'd like to think an Oscar does: an Oscar Hammerstein Award for Lifetime Achievement in Musical Theater! Bernadette Peters represents everything Oscar Hammerstein stood for, and we could not be more excited that she will be the recipient of our 32nd Oscar Hammerstein Award,” said James Morgan, The York's Producing Artistic Director. "And to have our longtime friend Ted Snowdon in the mix as well just makes it all too special. We hope you'll come out to support these two truly exceptional pillars of the theater community on November 11!"

The Oscar Hammerstein Award is named in honor of the legendary lyricist and librettist who helped shape American musical theatre through his collaborations with a number of different composers and writers. His contributions to such landmark musicals as Show Boat, Oklahoma!, South Pacific, and Carousel are a legacy for all time. The award was created in 1988 by Janet Hayes Walker, Founding Artistic Director of The York Theatre Company, and is presented with the endorsement of the Hammerstein family and the Rodgers and Hammerstein Organization. Its purpose is to recognize significant lifetime achievement in musical theatre and is presented at a gala evening held for the benefit of The York Theatre Company.

Past recipients of the Oscar Hammerstein Award include 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, Jerry Bock & Sheldon Harnick, Thomas Meehan, Barbara Cook, Paul Gemignani, Lynn Ahrens & Stephen Flaherty, Angela Lansbury, Joel Grey, Tom Jones & Harvey Schmidt, Susan Stroman, André De Shields, Richard Maltby, Jr. & David Shire, Leslie Uggams and most recently Patti LuPone.

Bernadette Peters

(2024 Oscar Hammerstein Award Recipient) Throughout her illustrious career, Bernadette Peters has dazzled audiences and critics with her performances on stage, film, and television, in concert, and on recordings. She has garnered numerous accolades including three Tony Awards, a Golden Globe, four Emmy and four Grammy Award nominations, and a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Best known for her work on stage as one of Broadway's most critically acclaimed performers, Bernadette just concluded a highly successful West End debut in the Cameron Mackintosh production of Old Friends, celebrating the life and work of Stephen Sondheim. It was recently announced the production will transfer to Broadway for the 2025 season. Bernadette has starred as Dolly Gallagher Levi in the hit musical Hello, Dolly!. She also starred in City Center's Encores! production A Bed and a Chair: A New York Love Affair featuring the music of Stephen Sondheim and orchestrations by Wynton Marsalis. Prior to that, she starred on Broadway in Stephen Sondheim's A Little Night Music and Follies. Peters garnered both the Tony Award and Drama Desk Award for her performance in the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical Song and Dance. She also won a Tony Award for her performance in Annie Get Your Gun. She received Tony nominations for her outstanding performances in Sam Mendes' critically acclaimed revival of Gypsy, in Neil Simon's The Goodbye Girl, Stephen Sondheim's Pulitzer Prize-winning musical Sunday in the Park with George, the Jerry Herman/Gower Champion ode to the movies, Mack and Mabel, and the Leonard Bernstein/Comden and Green musical On the Town. In addition to these honors, Peters earned a Drama Desk nomination for her unforgettable portrayal of the Witch in Stephen Sondheim's Into the Woods. She also enjoys a career which boasts an impressive list of television credits, most recently the Apple TV+ series, “High Desert” and a guest-starring role on the NBC-TV series, “Zoey's Extraordinary Playlist,” for which she earned an Emmy nomination. The popular series was made into a TV movie musical titled Zoey's Extraordinary Christmas for the Roku Channel. Other TV appearances include The CW's “Katy Keene,” CBS All Access' “The Good Fight,” and Amazon Prime's Golden Globe-winning series “Mozart in the Jungle”. Additional television credits include NBC's “Smash,” and ABC's “Grey's Anatomy” and “Ugly Betty” In addition to starring in the Lifetime TV movie Living Proof, Peters has lit up the silver screen in over 30 films throughout her distinguished career. She received a Golden Globe Award for her memorable performance in Pennies from Heaven. Other film credits include The Jerk, The Longest Yard, Silent Movie, Annie, Pink Cadillac, Slaves of New York, Woody Allen's Alice, Impromptu, It Runs in the Family, Coming Up Roses, The Broken Hearts Gallery, and most recently a surprise appearance in the popular Jonathan Larson biopic, tick, tick…BOOM! Bernadette has recorded six solo albums, including the Grammy-nominated I'll Be Your Baby Tonight, Sondheim, Etc.: Bernadette Peters Live at Carnegie Hall, and Bernadette Peters Loves Rodgers & Hammerstein, in addition to numerous original Broadway cast recordings. Peters devotes her time and talents to numerous events that benefit Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS. Her “pet project” Broadway Barks, co-founded with Mary Tyler Moore, is an annual star-studded dog and cat adoption event that benefits shelter animals in the New York City and tri-state area. The American Theater Wing honored her efforts and awarded her the Isabelle Stevenson Award, which recognizes an individual from the theatre community who has made a substantial contribution of volunteered time and effort on behalf of one or more humanitarian, social service, or charitable organizations, regardless of whether such organizations relate to the theatre. This past November, while in London, Bernadette presented West End Woofs, a sister event to Broadway Barks that she co-hosted with her good friend Elaine Paige. The event is the first of its kind in the UK, fostering a spirit of community among animal shelters and rescue groups. She is a New York Times best-selling author of three children's books: Broadway Barks, Stella Is a Star, and Stella and Charlie: Friends Forever. All of her proceeds from the sale of these books benefit Broadway Barks. Peters resides in New York and Los Angeles with her rescue dogs, Charlie and Rosalia.

The York Theatre Company Founders' Award recognizes individuals who have made a significant impact on the sustainability of the arts.

Past recipients of the award include The York's Founding Artistic Director Janet Hayes Walker, W. David McCoy, Sarah Tod Smith, Molly Grose, Robert Goldberg, Gerald F. Fisher, Betty Cooper Wallerstein, Riki Kane Larimer, Elisa Loti Stein,Ted Chapin and most recently Jamie deRoy.

Ted Snowdon

(2024 York Theatre Company Founders' Award Recipient) has been a supporter of Jim Morgan and the York Theatre Company for the past 30 years. He started going to Broadway musicals in 1956 and even appeared at Goodspeed in the world premiere of Man of La Mancha when he was nineteen. For all his love of musicals, Ted has mostly been a producer of comedies and dramas, both on Broadway and Off-, also working with top non-profit theaters. Twenty years ago, he developed Stephen Temperley's play with music Souvenir here at the York before moving it with star Judy Kaye to Broadway. Ted's first Broadway producing credit was 1979's Tony Award-winning play The Elephant Man. Subsequent producing highlights include Katori Hall's The Mountaintop starring Samuel L. Jackson and Angela Bassett, Donald Margulies's Time Stands Still with Laura Linney, Douglas Carter Beane's The Little Dog Laughed with Tony winner Julie White, Neil LaBute's Reasons to Be Pretty, Lynn Nottage's Pulitzer Prize-winning Sweat, Robert Schenkkan's The Great Society with Brian Cox as LBJ, and Selina Fillinger's wicked White House farce POTUS. He was a co-producer of two Tony Award-winning Best Musicals, Spring Awakening and A Gentleman's Guide to Love and Murder. He has presented works by Terrence McNally (Tyne Daly in Master Class), Chita Rivera in his musical of The Visit, The Stendhal Syndrome with Richard Thomas), Charles Busch (The Tribute Artist, The Confession of Lily Dare, the recent Ibsen's Ghost), A.R. Gurney (Black Tie and The Fourth Wall), and Jonathan Tolins (The Twilight of the Golds, The Last Sunday in June, Secrets of the Trade, and his smash Buyer & Cellar starring Michael Urie). Other Off-Broadway work includes Michael McKeever's Daniel's Husband, Clarence Coo's On That Day in Amsterdam, Mike Bartlett's Cock, David Ives's Mere Mortals, and David Cromer's 2009 staging of Wilder's Our Town. Last season he proudly co-produced Robert Montano's solo hit Small, as well as Stephen Sondheim's final musical collaboration (with David Ives and Joe Mantello), the provocative Here We Are. Ted sits on the boards of Primary Stages and The Glimmerglass Festival. He has long championed the arts and LGBTQ causes.

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