With only one day to go before the big day on CBS at 8 PM tomorrow, today we are shining a spotlight on a currently-running Broadway musical that has recently become the longest-running American musical in Broadway history - beating even the champ, A CHORUS LINE - John Kander, Fred Ebb and Bob Fosse's landmark 1920s vaudeville satire CHICAGO.

Today BroadwayWorld's 2012 Tony Awards Clip Countdown continues by highlighting one of the most innovative and unforgettable musicals ever composed - the Leonard Bernstein/Stephen Sondheim/Arthur Laurents/Jerome Robbins masterpiece WEST SIDE STORY.

As our yearly Tony Awards Clip Countdown continues on in 2012 as we quickly approach the night we have all been waiting for - the Tony Awards on June 10 - today we are paying tribute to a concept musical that changed the game and heralded the arrival of Stephen Sondheim and Hal Prince as the true theatrical titans of the 1970s (along with Michael Bennett in a choreography capacity) - COMPANY.

Today we are continuing the 2012 Tony Awards Clip Countdown with another pairing sure to instigate ample amounts of approbation and opprobrium - now, just as it did twenty-five years ago - the famous Tony Awards battle of THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA versus INTO THE WOODS.

Today we are continuing our analysis of the best Tony Awards clips of all time with an entertainment behemoth that defied the odds - and defied critics and even gravity in the process - to become the biggest hit of the new millennium: the Oz-ian meta-musical by Winnie Holzman and Stephen Schwartz, WICKED.

The final ten! Our extensive countdown of the greatest Tony Awards moments of all time - culminating in this year's ceremony, June 10 on CBS - continues today with a surefire must-see clip featuring one of the most glamorous, and, well, grand musicals of the 1980s or 1990s - GRAND HOTEL.

Today we continue our expansive look at the most memorable moments from the sixty-plus years of the Tony Awards by saluting one of the biggest hit musicals of all time that is about to hit the silver screen in a big budget adaptation starring Hugh Jackman, Russell Crowe and Anne Hathaway - the emotionally devastating and faith-affirming LES MISERABLES.

Continuing our extensive countdown considering many of Broadway's best clips as represented on Tony Awards telecasts recent and distant, today we look to the third and final clip from a Michael Bennett musical on our countdown - and, many would argue, the creme de la creme of them all - the only; the one; A CHORUS LINE. A 5, 6, 7, 8...

Today in the 2012 Tony Awards Clip Countdown we are setting our sights on one of the most notable early examples of mega-star casting on Broadway - that of none other than the iconic Katharine Hepburn - in a brand new musical composed by Andre Previn and staged by a young Michael Bennett: COCO. One of the most celebrated clips in Tony Awards history, the fifteen-minute dialogue scene and ensuing production number is nothing like we have ever seen on the show before or since - this puts the razzle in razzle dazzle, for shizzle.

Yesterday in the 2012 Tony Awards Clip Countdown - a look at the finest moments in theatre history as shown on the Tony Awards telecasts over the last sixty years - we focused on the 1982 Best Musical winner, NINE. While Tommy Tune's Fellini-inspired fever dream won the big prize, Michael Bennett's innovative and visionary R&B pop opera DREAMGIRLS won many of the night's most significant awards and has certainly firmly established itself as a firmament of the history of the modern musical in the intervening years. Among the prizes won by the DREAMGIRLS cast and creative team: Best Actress for Jennifer Holliday, as well as wins in the Featured Actor In A Musical category, Best Book for Tom Eyen and wins in the technical categories for the unprecedented, hi-tech design.

Today we are continuing our 30-day Tony Awards countdown - ending, of course, on the 2012 Tony Awards, June 10 - with a salute to a Tony-winning Best Musical directed and choreographed by the one and only Tommy Tune and composed by Maury Yeston - NINE. Based on Federico Fellini's 8 ½, NINE is a surrealistic concept musical that concerns itself with the mid-life crisis of a glamorous Italian film director and the many, many women in his life - his wife, his mother, his mistress, his muse, his agent and many, many more.

Today we continue our extensive consideration of the best Tony Awards clips of all time, culled from over sixty years worth of shows, as we look ahead to the 2012 ceremony on June 10 by saluting a true triple-threat times two whose Tony-winning Best Musical, THE WILL ROGERS FOLLIES, provided fodder for yesterday's selection - actor/director/choreographer Tommy Tune.

Today we are tying together the 2012 Tony Awards Clip Countdown selection with BroadwayWorld's extensive and exclusive InDepth InterView Tony Awards Edition premiere entry spotlighting NEWSIES and BONNIE & CLYDE director/choreographer Jeff Calhoun by focusing on Calhoun's first major choreographic contributions showcased on a Broadway stage, as seen in the 1991 Tony Award-winning Best Musical helmed by multi-Tony-winner Tommy Tune, THE WILL ROGERS FOLLIES.

With music and lyrics by Adam Guettel, the grandson of Richard Rodgers, THE LIGHT IN THE PIAZZA fulfilled its great promise by becoming one of the most enchantingly romantic and melodically moving musicals to come about in the new millennium and its Tony Awards for Best Score, Best Actress In A Musical, Best Orchestrations and a trio of technical prizes go a long way in justifying the notable place the Italianate musical has in American theatre history. Plus, what an original cast - besides Tony-winner Victoria Clark, THE LIGHT IN THE PIAZZA also featured fellow nominee Kelli O'Hara, who appears this season in a leading role in NICE WORK IF YOU CAN GET IT, as well as crossover GLEE superstar Matthew Morrison, who would go on to make another strong impression in a pivotal role in a musical at Lincoln Center soon thereafter (also under the direction of Barlett Sher) - SOUTH PACIFIC.

Today we continue the 2012 Tony Awards Clip Countdown - culminating in the final entry on June 10, aka Tony Sunday - with a focus on two tremendous theatrical talents who have crossed over from Broadway fame to international acclaim on Fox's hit musical dramedy series GLEE, which ends its third season tonight: HAIRSPRAY's Matthew Morrison and SPRING AWAKENING's Lea Michele.

RENT owned the 90s. No other Broadway show managed to have the dual impact on society by becoming not only a pop culture phenomenon, but also changing perceptions of what a musical on Broadway could be - and, most importantly, how it could sound. Contemporary, cool, caustic and engaging, RENT updated LA BOHEME to the East Village just as Jonathan Larson updated the way the general public looked at Broadway at a time when musicals had fallen farther out of fashion than they had since their early years approaching the turn of the last century. Yet, at the end of the millennium - to quote one of the show's lyrics - RENT represented the hopes, dreams and desires of many Broadway babies and what we hoped would be achieved on the Great White Way in the new century. While SPRING AWAKENING, AMERICAN IDIOT and NEXT TO NORMAL certainly stand as solid continuations of the rock musical formula recalibrated and made anew in the mold made by RENT, no show since RENT has quite managed to have the cultural impact and win over audiences and critics alike in as major a way as that Tony Award-winning and Pulitzer Prize-winning musical has - with the exception, perhaps, of WICKED, which obviously owes a debt to its Oz-ian source inspiration and the built-in audience that comes along with that. Yes, indeed, RENT represents an entire generation in its sound, style, ideals and overall feeling, mood and tone and the subsequent success of the many members of the simply astounding assortment of talents that comprised the original cast acts as evidence that the show may have had the cast of the decade, as well.

Today we celebrate Broadway's best and brightest moments at the Tony Awards - looking ahead the 2012 Tony telecast on June 10 on CBS - with this tremendous trio of triple-threat talents; all recreating the iconic roles and songs that brought them to Tony Award glory: Jennifer Holiday with "And I Am Telling You I'm Not Going" from DREAMGIRLS, Patti LuPone with "Don't Cry For Me Argentina" from EVITA and Betty Buckley with "Memory" from CATS. All original leading ladies; all performing the songs they introduced on the Great White Way - all as fabulous as always, if not more so.

While the Disney musical itself was suspiciously not nominated for Best Musical, the 2000 Tony Awards committee saw it fit to award Elton John & Tim Rice's stylish and emotional rock musical AIDA in four significant categories on June 4, 2000 - Best Actress In A Musical for Heather Headley charismatic lead performance, Best Score for Elton John and Tim Rice's moving and expressive music and lyrics, Best Scenic Design for Bob Crowley's stunning set-pieces and Best Lighting Design for Natasha Katz's enveloping illumination of the Palace Theatre's rightly famous stage. The show has gone on to a rich life around the world and in amateur productions, with generations of theatergoers hooked on the classic story once told in an opera by Verdi in a totally modern and dynamic new way - with some songs we are not soon to forget.

Having more influence on subsequent seasons than many a Tony Award-winning Best Musical before it or since, the pioneering and trend-setting jukebox Four Seasons biomusical JERSEY BOYS in many ways bucked the trends of previous song-catalog shows by utilizing a dazzling set design, inventive staging and fast-paced direction by Des McAnuff to tell the more-or-less true tale of Frank Valli and the other boys who rose to the top ranks of pop music in the 1960s with their falsetto-outfitted pop anthems and what the price of fame ultimately cost. Not since DREAMGIRLS had a music industry story been told so compellingly and innovatively and the show went on to win four awards that night: Best Actor In A Musical, Best Featured Actor In A Musical, Best Lighting and Best Musical.

Today's memorable Tony Awards moment for the ages comes courtesy of a former AMERICAN IDOL contestant-cum-Broadway leading man - Constantine Maroulis, who was nominated for Best Actor In A Musical at the 2009 Tony Awards ceremony - leading a cast of 80s mall-hair-ed New Jerseyians all armed with a song a prayer in a performance from the Tony-nominated 80s stadium metal jukebox hit ROCK OF AGES.

Today we continue BroadwayWorld's extensive look at highlights from the sixty-plus years of the Tony Awards as we anticipate this year's ceremony on June 10 on CBS with the absolutely riveting final moment of last year's telecast, featuring peerless host Neil Patrick Harris performing a verbally dexterous and dizzying - and damn good - wrap-up/rap-up penned by Tony-winning IN THE HEIGHTS composer/lyricist Lin-Manuel Miranda and director Tommy Kail.

The impact of the influential 1969 rock opera TOMMY by The Who is incalculable insofar as its impact on perceptions of what modern musical storytelling could be and the way it shaped the way theatre music was received by audiences at large, and that is due in no small part to the awe-inspiring attributes of Pete Townshend's seminal, still timeless score. "Pinball Wizard" to "Acid Queen" to "Listening To You" and beyond, the multitude of strong melodies and potent messages in the psychedelic show continue to be compelling and absorbing - and the success of the show has continued beyond its multi-Tony Award-winning Broadway production: GLEE takes on the unforgettable Act One closer tonight, "Pinball Wizard".

Today we are continuing BroadwayWorld's month-long Tony Awards clip countdown - which culminates in the Tony telecast itself on Sunday, June 10 - with a handful of Tony moments featuring members of the awesomely talented cast of NBC's musical drama series SMASH - season finale airing at 10 PM tonight - years before their big TV breakthrough roles on the hit show, which has been officially renewed for a second season: Megan Hilty, Brian d'Arcy James and a Tony Award nominee this year, Christian Borle!

Today we are continuing BroadwayWorld's month-long salute to the 2012 Tony Awards - which will take place June 10 on CBS - with a spectacular performance captured only last year, featuring three generations of J. Pierrepont Finches - originator Robert Morse, revival Tony Award-winner Matthew Broderick and Hollywood/Broadway crossover superstar Daniel Radcliffe - with the former two introducing the latter as he leads "Brotherhood Of Man" from the Pulitzer Prize-winning HOW TO SUCCEED IN BUSINESS WITHOUT REALLY TRYING, a true blue Broadway classic.

Today we are kicking off BroadwayWorld's month-long salute to the 2012 Tony Awards with a clip sure to set even the bleakest, darkest and blandest of nights alight - Liza Minnelli capping off the most spectacular opening number in Tony Awards history, the 2009 Tony Awards opening number, with a little aid from Elton John, Dolly Parton, Sutton Foster, Brian d'Arcy James and many more.