Broadway World
Bette Midler and HELLO, DOLLY! Cast React To Tony Awards Nominations
by Alan Henry
May. 2, 2017
BroadwayWorld has been speaking with Tony Award nominees all morning, getting their first reactions!
Bette Midler, nominated for her performance in HELLO, DOLLY! told BroadwayWorld “I am so delighted and proud to be nominated for a Tony Award, and I hope to hell I win! And if I don’t, I will still have had the most extraordinary experience of my career playing that damned exasperating woman, Dolly Gallagher Levi, in one of the greatest productions of ‘Hello, Dolly!’ this old world has ever seen. I’m very grateful to the American Theater Wing and the Broadway League— and most especially to everyone at the Shubert Theatre who makes me look so good every single night. ”
Check out reactions from her fellow nominees below!
Gavin Creel, Hello, Dolly! – Best Performance by an Actor in a Featured Role in a Musical –I’ll be honest, I’m at a Holiday Inn Express in Ohio, I had a concert last night here and the WiFi was not working here this morning and the Tony site was down so I wasn’t able to watch and I thought, ‘well I guess this it’s not happening for me today’ but then I got like 87 text messages from friends so I knew it was good news. I’m still enjoying this wonderful honey pot that we’re siting in and still taking it in that I’m even in ‘Hello Dolly’. It all happens at once when you open in the spring, the sweet cake of opening and celebrating and being well received is a feast on it’s own, and then to have this on top of it. I just can’t wait to get back to work Wednesday morning and hug all my friends and share this – its the best thing about what we do, we get to do this over and over again and be together.
Kate Baldwin, Hello, Dolly! –Best Performance by an Actress in a Featured Role in a Musical – I was taking my son to school around 8:45 and I had phone in pocket. And all it once it wouldn’t stop buzzing. I turned to my husband, Graham Rowat, who is in SUNSET BOULEVARD, and he showed me all of the five ladies that were nominated. Today is my birthday, so this was a great birthday present! It is already such a great day! The weather is beautiful, my family is happy and healthy, what more could I ask for? I am so happy and proud of this cast. And as for my fellow nominees they are all fantastic performers, but I know them all as fantastic women, too. This nomination is such an encouragement and endorsement of what I do every night. I am living the child hood dream of performing in musical theatre every night. And, through the 20 years there are always highs and lows. This is an amazing high. Plus the theatre community is so fabulous and filled with generous and loving people. That’s the best part. I will have a duo-celebration tonight out to dinner for my birthday and the nomination!
HELLO, DOLLY! stars Bette Midler and features a star-studded cast. The Broadway revival of Michael Stewart and Jerry Herman‘s masterpiece Hello, Dolly! is directed by four-time Tony Award winner Jerry Zaks and choreographed by Tony Award winnerWarren Carlyle.
