Kushner Wins 2nd Tony for ‘Angels’

For the second year in a row, “Angels in America,” the epic play about AIDS, gay life and Roy Cohn, won the Tony for best play in the annual ceremony honoring Broadway’s best, held Sunday at the Gershwin Theatre in New York.

This year’s award went to part two, “Perestroika,” of the Tony Kushner play, while last year’s went to part one, “Millennium Approaches.” Both productions were co-produced on Broadway by the Mark Taper Forum, and an earlier version of the play was staged in Los Angeles in 1992.

Accepting the Best Play Tony, playwright Kushner thanked “gay and lesbian brothers the world over who are fighting for both a cure and for citizenship.” His comment about gay rights was the only remotely topical comment of the two-hour telecast.

Actor Stephen Spinella, who plays a man with AIDS, also won his second Tony for the same show. Last year he won in the featured actor category for “Millennium Approaches,” while this year he was named best leading actor in a play for “Perestroika.”

“Passion,” a Stephen Sondheim/James Lapine collaboration about an obsessive love affair in 19th-Century Italy, was named best musical, beating “Disney’s Beauty and the Beast,” an adaptation of the popular animated movie. The competition between the two had been touted as a contest between high art, in the case of the Sondheim/Lapine work, and commerce in the case of the Disney show.

The Disney company’s first Broadway venture, “Beauty” received only one Tony--for veteran designer Ann Hould-Ward’s costumes--out of its nine nominations. Despite box-office success for the show, some Broadway traditionalists had criticized it for being a “theme park” production, with many creators who were not experienced on Broadway.

The most awards for a single show went to the Lincoln Center revival of “Carousel.” It won best musical revival and four other honors.

Two shows won four Tonys each--”Passion” and the revival of J.B. Priestley’s “An Inspector Calls,” which was named best revival of a play. This was the first year the revival category had been split into separate awards for plays and musicals.

“I had no doubt ‘Perestroika’ was the most exciting play,” said Taper artistic director Gordon Davidson. But he said he was concerned that Tony voters might have chosen to lump the two halves of Kushner’s epic into one play and deny “Perestroika” an award on the grounds that “Angels” had already received one. As for Spinella’s repeat triumph, Davidson said the consecutive victories in different categories “exactly matches the growth of that character” in the play.

Neither of the other Taper-nurtured productions that were nominated, “The Kentucky Cycle” and “Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992,” won awards. Davidson expressed regret for those losses but added, “You can’t turn this into a horse race.”

The first Tony for lifetime achievement went to actors Jessica Tandy and Hume Cronyn. George Abbott, the 106-year-old dean of American stage directors, appeared near the beginning of the program to announce, “On with the show.”

The list of Tony winners:

* Play: “Angels in America: Perestroika,” by Tony Kushner, produced by Jujamcyn Theaters, Mark Taper Forum/Gordon Davidson, Margo Lion, Susan Quint Gallin, Jon B. Platt, the Baruch-Frankel-Viertel Group, Frederick Zollo, Herb Alpert.

* Musical: “Passion,” produced by the Shubert Organization, Capital Cities/ABC, Roger Berlind, Scott Rudin, Lincoln Center Theater.

* Revival/Play: “An Inspector Calls” produced by Noel Pearson, the Shubert Organization, Capital Cities/ABC, Joseph Harris.

* Revival/Musical: “Carousel,” produced by Lincoln Center Theatre, Andre Bishop, Bernard Gersten, the Royal National Theatre, Cameron Mackintosh, the Rodgers & Hammerstein Organization.

* Book of a Musical: James Lapine, “Passion.”

* Original Score: Stephen Sondheim, “Passion.”

* Director/Musical: Nicholas Hytner, “Carousel.”

* Director/Play: Stephen Daldry, “An Inspector Calls.”

* Leading Actor/Play: Stephen Spinella, “Angels in America: Perestroika.”

* Leading Actress/Play: Diana Rigg, “Medea.”

* Leading Actor/Musical: Boyd Gaines, “She Loves Me.”

* Leading Actress/Musical: Donna Murphy, “Passion.”

* Featured Actor/Play: Jeffrey Wright, “Angels in America: Perestroika.”

* Featured Actress/Play: Jane Adams, “An Inspector Calls.”

* Featured Actor/Musical: Jarrod Emick, “Damn Yankees.”

* Featured Actress/Musical: Audra Ann McDonald, “Carousel.”

* Scenic Design: Bob Crowley, “Carousel.”

* Costume Design: Ann Hould-Ward, “Disney’s Beauty and the Beast.”

* Lighting Design: Rick Fisher, “An Inspector Calls.”

* Choreography: The late Sir Kenneth MacMillan, “Carousel.”

* Regional Theater: McCarter Theatre of Princeton, N.J.

* Lifetime Achievement: Jessica Tandy, Hume Cronyn.