PASADENA, Calif. — Danny Feldman is inviting pretty much anyone to come by and take the Tony for a spin.
“Everyone’s been doing it,” he said as he watched the silver medallion rotate, catching the sun in the courtyard outside the historic Pasadena Playhouse. “It’s really fun.”
This Tony Award isn’t the only thing spinning at the Pasadena Playhouse.
Feldman’s life has been whirling for weeks. He just got back to California after a blink of an eye trip to the Big Apple to accept this year’s Regional Theatre Tony Award.
A day later, he and his new sidekick, which rode the conveyor belt though airport security, were back on the west coast, and since then he’s been taking Tony on a tour, celebrating each first as if it’s newborn.
“It’s the Tony’s first visit inside the theater,” he said as he entered the house.
On stage, crewmembers were busy building the set for the next show. “Hey, everyone!” Feldman said as he approached them, award in hand. “Our Tony hasn’t been on stage yet. I think it’s time.”
As the crew applauded, he placed the trophy on the stage and set it spinning once again. He even brought it to neighboring restaurants so they could have a turn watching it turn.
“It really belongs to the whole community, so we want as many people to hold it as possible,” Feldman beamed.
The excitement isn’t just all over his face. It’s all over the theater, with reminders of the achievement around every corner. A small sign at the entrance to the administration offices simply reads “Pasadena Playhouse.” But now a post-it note is stuck on the corner, adding “Tony Award-winning” to the name.
This wasn’t something Feldman planned, but was something he strived for and used to motivate the staff, even during periods when the official state theater of California was struggling.
“We should be a Tony winning theater. We should think of ourselves in this way,” he recalled telling them. “It was a little bit of wishful thinking. Aspirational thinking, but look, it came true. So I guess it works.”
The award, he’s quick to point out, isn’t just for this past season and their highly acclaimed, six month Sondheim celebration. It’s for their body of work, their role in the community, their dedication to education and accessibility and their willingness to push the boundaries.
Now that they’ve reached this new highest of highs, Feldman has no intention of easing up.
The Pasadena Playhouse was already in rehearsal for their next play, which he describes as the polar opposite of Sondheim. It’s the LA premiere of the play Stew by Zora Howard, who Feldman calls a fresh new voice in American Theatre.
He knows the industry still hasn’t fully recovered from the pandemic and he knows news plays can be a tough sell, but he’s got an ace in the hole.
“We hope that a Tony Award makes people trust us a little bit,” he said of audiences. “It’s very, very important for us to move the American Theatre forward, right? Our role here is not just to do shows that people know but to really expand what goes on our stage, our historic stage.”
In the meantime, he needs to find the perfect home for his new leading lady. It’s all about location, location, location.
Wherever the Tony ends up, he says, it needs to be in a place where everyone who walks through the doors can see it.
“We believe this Tony belongs to every audience member, every artist, every crew member, every donor, every member,” he said, echoing the speech he made on Sunday night during the award show. “We want to make sure that everyone has an opportunity to share that and feel the excitement and the joy that we all feel having this right here next to us.”
This award is a nod to the work they’ve done over their century long history.
It’s proof, he feels, that the work being done on LA stages is just as vital and vibrant as Broadway. And he hopes it will serve as a constant reminder to all involved to continue to push the envelope and the art form ever forward.