Who: Simon Jones, David Barbour, Martha Wade Steketee, and Mark Rifkin, plus Steve Ross
What: Tony Awards preview and cabaret concert
Where: The Coffee House Club at the Salmagundi Club, 47 Fifth Ave. between Eleventh & Twelfth Sts.
When: Wednesday, June 4, free for members, $10 for nonmembers, 5:30
Why: The seventy-eighth annual Tony Awards take place Sunday, June 8, at Radio City Music Hall, but you can get a sneak peek at who the winners might be when the prestigious Coffee House Club hosts its popular Tony Awards preview on June 4. Discussing the shows nominated in the major categories will be the inimitable Martha Wade Steketee, the incomparable David Barbour, and me, moderated by the wonderful actor and raconteur Simon Jones. You can read our bios below.
The event begins at 5:30 at the Salmagundi Club and will be followed at 6:30 by “Steve Ross & Friends: Cole Porter, Sung & Unsung,” in which the legendary Crown Prince of New York Cabaret will perform favorite and surprise Porter tunes. Admission is free for members and $10 for guests; everyone is invited to an a la carte dinner afterward to continue the party with advance RSVP.
Simon Jones will moderate Tony Awards preview at the Coffee House Club on June 4 (photo by Conrad Blakemore)
Simon Jones has starred opposite Joan Collins, Lauren Bacall, Rex Harrison, Claudette Colbert, and Angela Lansbury over thirteen productions on Broadway. His most recent appearance was in Trouble in Mind at the Roundabout Theatre in 2021–22. He has recorded more than two hundred audio books. He played King George V in the first Downton Abbey movie, and his other film credits include Miracle on Thirty-Fourth Street, Twelve Monkeys, Brazil, and Monty Python’s The Meaning of Life. In a TV career spanning forty years, he remains well known for his performances as Arthur Dent in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Bridey in Brideshead Revisited, and Sir Walter Raleigh in Blackadder, and currently he is one of the stars of The Gilded Age on HBO/MAX, as Bannister the butler. Season three begins June 22.
Martha Wade Steketee is a theater-loving public policy researcher who currently practices in the fields of dramaturgy, criticism, and theater research. She serves as chair of the Drama Desk nominating committee and on several play prize committees, is a member of the Henry Hewes Design Awards Committee and past chair of the American Theatre Critics/Journalists Association, and author of the Women Count report series analyzing gender in hiring trends off Broadway since 2010.
David Barbour is editor-in-chief of Lighting & Sound America, which covers design and technology in live entertainment. He is also copresident of the Drama Desk and a member of the New York Drama Critics Circle and the Henry Hewes Design Awards Committee.
Mark Rifkin is a member of the Drama Desk and the American Theatre Critics/Journalists Association and has been running the online newsmagazine This Week in New York since 2001, covering art, film, theater, literature, dance, music, food, and anything else that requires someone to leave their apartment in the five boroughs. You can follow his “mad transit” adventures on Substack.