A Rosalind Russell Tony Award® for Wonderful Town
Silver medallion with 'Antoinette Perry Award' and comedy-and-tragedy mask design in bas-relief to front, engraved on the verso, 'The American / Theatre Wing / Presents to / Rosalind Russell / This Award For / Her Performance in / 'Wonderful Town' / 1952-53.' Together with other ephemera from the production including 31 silver gelatin photographs, some doubleweight, many stamped 'VanDamm' on the verso, of Russell performing in the play, behind-the-scenes, and with co-stars; a 9 x 12 in. souvenir program featuring biographies and photographs of the cast and crew; a Playbill program from the Winter Garden with Russell on the cover dated August 10, 1953; 10 black-and-white 4 x 5 in. negatives of the front exterior of the Winter Garden Theatre in New York showing Russell's name and the production title in Broadway lights; a 33rpm record album of Wonderful Town when it was broadcast on CBS in 1958 with co-star Sydney Chaplin; and a CD of the original Broadway cast album.
Tony Award®: 3 in. diameter
Footnotes:
Rosalind Russell's characterization of Ruth Sherwood in Wonderful Town was familiar to her in that she had played the same part in the 1942 film, My Sister Eileen. A Broadway musical was a different bird, however. From February 1953 to July 1954, Russell garnered rave reviews and was eventually presented with Broadway's highest honor, the coveted Antoinette Perry ('Tony') Award®. With Music by Leonard Bernstein and Lyrics by Betty Comden and Adolph Green, Russell found herself amongst the Broadway elite. Hers was a very physical performance; musical numbers found her singing while simultaneously being tossed about like a rag doll by chorus boys in very intricate choreography. The results were spectacular, proving that the 40-plus-years' Russell could still, as she said, 'lay it on with the best of 'em.'