Hearne: Theater League Honcho Polishes Off Sondheim After Dissing

Just like real life, revenge can taste soooooo sweet on the Broadway stage…

As evidenced Sunday in New York by Theater League honcho Mark Edelman at this year’s Tony Awards.

"We invested in two shows and both of them won Tonys," Edelman says. "So it was a pretty good night for us. We won the big ones, including ‘best musical’ for ‘Once‘ – which won 8 Tonys – it was the biggest winner of the night. And we won for Best Revival of a Musical for The Gershwins’ ‘Porgy and Bess,’ which is kinda funny because it beat out a revival of ‘Follies‘ by Steven Sondheim.

Which was a massive upset, as evidenced by the Washington Post report stating that Sondheim’s ‘Follies" was "considered by some the best musical revival of the Broadway season."

"And Sonheim had dissed ‘Porgy and Bess’ earlier," Edelman says. "He wrote a letter to the New York Times, whcih of course, they printed. You know, ‘Porgy and Bess’ is four and one-half hours long – so that’s pretty long – and a lot of people have never seen it because of that. So it was re-written to just two and one half hours long and Sondheim got bent out of shape about it. But ultimately it was a winner and beat out his musical ‘Follies’ which was bittersweet."

So are any of Edelman’s "investments" KC bound?

"I’m not sure about ‘Porgy’s,’ but ‘Once’ is definitelly KC bound because it won the Tonys and it’s a great musical," Edelman says. "We’re trying to get it for 2013/2014 which is pretty early, but we’re already holding dates.

"And ‘Peter and the Starcatcher‘ – which is Peter Pan – won five Tonys and we’re trying to get that for the Kauffman Center for 2013/2014, too. And ‘War Horse‘ is coming in 2013/2014, but that may go to the Music Hall because it’s a bigger show. The movie’s a bloody war movie but the play has puppeteering with the horses actually being huge puppets with the puppeteer inside them and the actors on top of the horses riding – it’s amazing."

Stay tuned…