Tony Awards to Honor Broadway Talent, Parkland Teacher

“(Let’s) just bake a cake for everyone who wants a cake to be baked,” Andrew Garfield said when he won a Tony Award Sunday night in New York for best leading actor in a play for his work in Angels In America, the revival of Tony Kushner’s monumental drama about AIDS and homosexuality in the 1980s. 

Garfield’s remark was a reference to last week’s Supreme Court decision in favor of a baker’s right to refuse to bake a cake for a gay couple’s wedding. 

Josh Groban and Sara Bareilles are the co-hosts for this year’s awards ceremony for the best performances on Broadway. 

A band of Egyptian musicians, a sea sponge, an ice princess, mean girls and a magical child named Harry Potter are among those vying Sunday for the highest honors bestowed on Broadway theater: the Tony Awards. 

Broadway veteran Nathan Lane won the Tony Award for best featured actor in a play for his work in Angels in America. 

Eighty-two year old British actress Glenda Jackson won her first Tony for her role in the revival of Edward Albee’s Three Tall Women. 

Laurie Metcalf won best featured actress in a play for Three Tall Women. Metcalf won a Tony last year for A Doll’s House, Part 2. 

But in the midst of Broadway’s magical night, one award was presented for outstanding off-Broadway work. The recipient was Melody Hertzfeld, the head of the drama department at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. 

The drama teacher was recognized for saving dozens of children from the deadly mass shooting at the school that claimed 17 lives. She is credited for saving more than 65 students by guiding them to safety and keeping them out of harm’s way for more than two hours. 

She received the 2018 Excellence in Theatrical Education award, which honors an educator “who has demonstrated monumental impact on the lives of students.” It comes with a $10,000 prize for the winner’s theater program. 

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