11 Broadway Couples Boasting at Least One Tony Nomination Each | Playbill

Lists 11 Broadway Couples Boasting at Least One Tony Nomination Each

Celebrate Valentine’s Day with a few of Broadway’s most accomplished pairings.

Will Swenson and Audra McDonald

How many Tony statues can one household have? This Valentine’s Day, we take a look at a few couples where both parties have been nominated for Broadway's top honor.

Carrie Coon and Tracy Letts

Carrie Coon and Tracy Letts

Letts and Coon both earned Tony nominations for their roles as George and Honey, respectively, in the 2012 revival of Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? They were married the next year—in a hospital. Letts was rushed into emergency gall bladder surgery the day before their marriage license was set to expire. In lieu of renewing it, they got married in hospital gowns.

Will Swenson and Audra McDonald

Will Swenson and Audra McDonald Joseph Marzullo/WENN

The couple met while working on Roundabout Theater Company’s 2007 revival of 110 in the Shade. Swenson was already a Tony nominee for the 2009 revival of Hair. McDonald received the sixth of her nine nominations for her role in 110 in the Shade. (She has six wins in her pocket, the most of any individual.) They will celebrate their tenth wedding anniversary later this year.

Terrence McNally and Tom Kirdahy

Terrence McNally and Tom Kirdahy

Hours after the Supreme Court’s 2015 ruling legalizing gay marriage nationwide, Kirdahy and McNally renewed their vows in a ceremony officiated by former New York City mayor (and Kirdahy’s college roommate) Bill de Blasio. Kirdahy produced many of McNally’s plays and musicals, including Mothers and Sons, Ragtime, Master Class, The Visit, and Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune. They have 18 Tony nominations split evenly between them, as well as a special lifetime achievement Tony for McNally. The couple remained together until McNally’s death in 2020.

Fran and Barry Weissler

Fran and Barry Weissler

In 1964, Fran Weissler agreed to take over a friend’s box office shift for a touring production of The Taming of the Shrew produced and directed by Barry Weissler. “Barry was everything that I never thought I’d be interested in,” Fran Weissler told Playbill. The couple is now a producing team with 16 Tony nominations for shows such as Waitress, Grease, Chicago, Fiddler on the Roof, and Gypsy.

Kristen Anderson-Lopez and Robert Lopez

Kristen Anderson-Lopez and Robert Lopez Marc J. Franklin

It was love at first Trekkie Monster. The husband-and-wife songwriting team met at a musical theatre workshop where Robert Lopez mesmerized his future wife with his performance of a few early Avenue Q songs. The couple would start working together on a stage adaptation of Finding Nemo for Disney’s Animal Kingdom in 2006 and later earn a Tony Award nomination for Best Original Score for the Frozen musical. They also collaborated on the original Frozen film, Frozen II, Coco, and WandaVision.

Rebecca Luker and Danny Burstein

Rebecca Luker and Danny Burstein Marc. J. Franklin

Burstein is the most recent winner of the Tony Award for Best Featured Actor in a Musical for his role in Moulin Rouge! The Musical. The award is in good company: Burstein has seven nominations overall. Luker was equally a Broadway powerhouse. She originated the part of Lily in The Secret Garden and starred as Marian in the 2000 revival of The Music Man, a role which earned her one of her three Tony nominations. The couple married in 2000 and remained together until Luker’s death in 2020.

Terrence Mann and Charlotte d’Amboise

Terrence Mann and Charlotte d'Amboise

D’Amboise met Mann in 1984, when she made her Broadway debut as a replacement in Cats. The duo now has five Tony nominations, two children, and a musical theatre intensive between them. Mann received nominations for Les Misérables, Beauty and the Beast, and Pippin, the latter of which also featured d’Amboise. D’Amboise earned nominations for Jerome Robbins’ Broadway and A Chorus Line.

Orfeh and Andy Karl

Orfeh and Andy Karl

In 1999, Karl made his Broadway debut in the show Orfeh was starring in. “Before I was in Saturday Night Fever, I used to stare at her photos on [the show’s’] marquee,” Karl told Playbill. Since then, they’ve also appeared together onstage in Legally Blonde and Pretty Woman: The Musical. Orfeh received a Tony nomination for her role in Legally Blonde, while Karl was nominated for Rocky, On the Twentieth Century, and Groundhog Day.

Roger Rees and Rick Elice

Roger Rees and Rick Elice

Actor-director Roger Rees and actor-writer Rick Elice both scored Tony nominations for their work on Peter and the Starcatcher. They have six nominations split evenly between them, including a Best Actor in a Play win for Rees for The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby. The two met at the dress rehearsal for Cats and were together for 37 years until Rees' death in 2015. Elice wrote Finding Roger: An Improbably Theatrical Love Story, a memoir about Rees' life and their partnership. 

Kathleen Marshall and Scott Landis

Kathleen Marshall and Scott Landis

Landis and Marshall met working on the 2006 revival of The Pajama Game. He was producing; she was directing and choreographing. By the time they won statuettes for that revival, the two were an item. They’ve collectively been nominated for 14 Tony Awards. Landis has been honored for producing shows such as The Ferryman, Twelfth Night, and Nice Work If You Can Get It, the latter of which earned Marshall Tony nods for direction and choreography. Marshall was also nominated for her work on Wonderful Town, Anything Goes, and Kiss Me, Kate.

Mel Brooks and Anne Bancroft

Mel Brooks and Anne Bancroft Photo by Barry Wetcher / HBO

"We started talking, and we never stopped,” Brooks says about Bancroft in his biography All About Me! Bancroft was already a two-time Tony winner known for originating the role of Annie Sullivan in The Miracle Worker when they met in 1961. Brooks would later pick up Tony Awards for Best Musical, Book of a Musical, and Original Score for The Producers. The two were married for more than 40 years, until Bancroft’s death in 2005.

 
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