54th Tony Awards

The 54th Annual Tony Awards was an event held at Radio City Music Hall on June 4, 2000, and broadcast by CBS. "The First Ten" awards ceremony was telecast on PBS. It was hosted, for the third time since 1997, by Rosie O'Donnell, with special guest Nathan Lane.

Eligibility
Shows that opened on Broadway during the 1999–2000 season, before May 2, 2000, were eligible.


 * Original plays
 * Copenhagen
 * Dirty Blonde
 * The Green Bird
 * The Ride Down Mt. Morgan
 * Rose
 * Taller Than a Dwarf
 * True West
 * Voices in the Dark
 * Waiting in the Wings
 * Wrong Mountain


 * Original musicals
 * Aida
 * Contact
 * James Joyce's The Dead
 * Kat and the Kings
 * Marie Christine
 * Putting It Together
 * Riverdance – On Broadway
 * Saturday Night Fever
 * Swing!
 * The Wild Party


 * Play revivals
 * Amadeus
 * Epic Proportions
 * A Moon for the Misbegotten
 * The Price
 * The Rainmaker
 * The Real Thing
 * Uncle Vanya


 * Musical revivals
 * Jesus Christ Superstar
 * Kiss Me, Kate
 * The Music Man
 * Tango Argentino

Ceremony
The opening number was "A Tony Opening", performed by Rosie O'Donnell, Jane Krakowski, Jesse L. Martin, and Megan Mullally.

Production numbers from musicals included Contact, Boyd Gaines and the Girl in the Yellow Dress, Deborah Yates; Kiss Me, Kate, "Too Darn Hot"; Jesus Christ Superstar, "Superstar" and "Gethsemane"; The Music Man, Craig Bierko in "Seventy-Six Trombones" ; The Wild Party, medley from Mandy Patinkin, Eartha Kitt and Toni Collette; Swing!, medley from company and Ann Hampton Callaway and Laura Benanti; and James Joyce's The Dead, "Parnell's Plight."

Ten awards were presented prior to the main ceremony and were broadcast on Public Television in a show titled "The First 10 Awards: Tonys 2000." The show had interviews and showed clips from the season's productions, and presented the awards: Direction (Play and Musical), Choreography, Original Score, Book of a Musical, Costume Design, Scenic Design, Orchestration, Lighting Design and Regional Theater. Michael Blakemore is the only director to win Tony Awards as Best Director of a Play and Best Director of a Musical in the same year. He won this year for Copenhagen (play) and Kiss Me, Kate (musical).

The television ratings for this broadcast were 7.2, down from the 1999 Tony Award broadcast of 7.9. In prior years in which O'Donnell hosted, the program had ratings of 11.2 (1997) and 10.3 (1998).

Contact controversy
The winner of the award for Best Musical, Contact, raised controversy about what constitutes a musical, as it is a dance musical with no singing and minimal dialogue; and instead of original music, it uses pre-recorded music and songs. As a result of the controversy, a new category was created for the Tony Awards: Best Special Theatrical Event.

Winners and nominees
Winners are in bold

Special awards
Regional Theatre Award
 * The Utah Shakespearean Festival

Special Lifetime Achievement Tony Award
 * T. Edward Hambleton

Special Tony Award For a Live Theatrical Presentation
 * Dame Edna: The Royal Tour

Tony Honors for Excellence in Theatre
 * Eileen Heckart
 * Sylvia Herscher
 * City Center Encores!

Multiple nominations and awards
These productions had multiple nominations:


 * 12 nominations: Kiss Me, Kate
 * 8 nominations: The Music Man
 * 7 nominations: Contact and The Wild Party
 * 6 nominations: Swing!
 * 5 nominations: Aida, Dirty Blonde, James Joyce's The Dead, Marie Christine and The Real Thing
 * 4 nominations: A Moon for the Misbegotten and True West
 * 3 nominations: Copenhagen
 * 2 nominations: Amadeus, The Green Bird, The Ride Down Mt. Morgan, Uncle Vanya and Waiting in the Wings

The following productions received multiple awards.


 * 5 wins: Kiss Me, Kate
 * 4 wins: Aida and Contact
 * 3 wins: Copenhagen and The Real Thing