Cairo Association of Teachers - Newsletter

CAT Tracks for June 16, 2008 CHRISTOPHER JACKSON

Former Cairoite performs at the 62nd Tony Awards. The show that Christopher Jackson is appearing in on Broadway took the night's top honor for best musical.

Congratulations, Chris

For those of you who do not know Christopher Jackson, he is the performer on the left in white shirt and tie.

By CAMPBELL ROBERTSON

Reflecting an eclectic Broadway season, the 62nd Annual Tony Awards crowned a salsa-flavored musical written by a theater novice, a nostalgic glamorous revival, a sweeping melodrama from a writer making his Broadway debut, and the revival of a ’60s sex farce.

For best musical, the top award of the night went to “In the Heights,” a show about Latino families in way uptown Manhattan created by 28-year-old Lin-Manuel Miranda, who is not only making his Broadway debut but his professional theater debut with this show as well. The show also won awards for score, orchestrations and choreography.

Mr. Miranda, who has been known to rap in public presentations from time to time, did not disappoint when he won for his salsa, rap, hip-hop and reggaetón-flavored score for “In the Heights,” a show he created in college.

“I used to dream about this moment, now I’m in it,” he rapped. “Tell the conductor to hold the baton a minute.” (Mr. Miranda did, in fact, give a shout-out to Broadway royalty, quoting Stephen Sondheim’s lyrics from “Sunday in the Park With George”: “Look, Mr. Sondheim, I made a hat where there never was a hat and it’s a Latin hat at that.”)

The full article can be found/read at http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/16/theater/theaterspecial/16tony.html?th&emc=th.