Countdown to the Tony Awards: Tonys By Numbers

In 2001, The Producers was nominated for and won 12 Tony Awards: Best Musical, Book, Score, Leading Actor (Nathan Lane), Featured Actor (Gary Beach), Featured Actress (Cady Huffman), Scenic Design, Costume Design, Lighting Design, Choreography, Direction, and Orchestrations. Talk about a crowd-pleaser!

The three parts of Tom Stoppard's trilogy about Russian thinkers were nominated as one play: The Coast of Utopia (something I still think should have been done for The Lord of the Rings at the Oscars). In 2007, it won the awards for Best Play, Featured Actor (Billy Crudup), Featured Actress (Jennifer Ehle, Direction, Scenic Design, Costume Design, and Lighting Design.

Both Chicago in 1976 and Steel Pier in 1997 had 11 nominations, but didn't take home a single award. Both musicals were written by composer/lyricist team Kander and Ebb, and ironically, Steel Pier lost a bunch of awards to the enormously popular 1997 revival of Chicago.

South Pacific (1950), Sweeney Todd (1979), and Hairspray (2003) all won the coveted 6: Best Musical, Score, Book, Leading Actor, Leading Actress, and Direction. The only reason The Producers isn't included in this category is that it doesn't have a Leading Actress character.

The original 1950 production of South Pacific won Best Actor (Ezio Pinza), Actress (Mary Martin), Featured Actor (Myron McCormick), and Featured Actress (Juanita Hall) in the third ever Tony Awards. It's the only production, play or musical, ever to do that.

The 2008 revival of South Pacific took the awards for Best Lighting, Costumes, Set, and Sound (Sound having been a new category that year). I'm not really sure why everyone seems to love South Pacific so much-- no matter what you do to it, it's still very much a product of its times-- but the 2008 revival WAS visually stunning.

At the 2010 Tony Awards, the musical La Cage Aux Folles, upon which the film The Birdcage is based, won Best Revival of a Musical. It had previously won Best Revival in 2005, as well as Best Musical during its original run in 1984, making it the only single show, musical or play, to win a Best Production award three times.

Harold "Hal" Prince has won 21 Tony Awards over the course of his long and varied career: 8 for Direction, 8 for Producing, 2 as producer of the year's Best Musical, and 3 Special Tony Awards.

Boyd Gaines was the first actor to be nominated in all four categories: Best Featured Actor in a Play in 1989 for The Heidi Chronicles, Best Actor in a Musical in 1994 for She Loves Me, Best Featured Actor in a Musical in 2000 for Contact and in 2008 for Gypsy, and Best Actor in a Play in 2007 for Journey's End. He won every award except Journey's End.

Raúl Esparza was the second performer to be nominated in all four categories: Best Featured Actor in a Musical in 2004 for Taboo, Best Actor in a Musical in 2007 for Company, Best Featured Actor in a Play in 2008 for The Homecoming, and Best Actor in a Play in 2009 for Speed-the-Plow. Somehow he hasn't won any of them yet, though each performance has been absolutely stunning (I still think he was robbed the year of Company!).

Angela Lansbury is the only female performer to be nominated in all four categories: Best Actress in a Musical for Mame (1966), Dear World (1969), Gypsy (1975), and Sweeney Todd (1979); Best Actress in a Play for Deuce (2007); Best Featured Actress in a Play for Blithe Spirit (2009); and Best Featured Actress in a Musical for A Little Night Music (2010). She won for Mame, Dear World, Gypsy, Sweeney Todd, and Blithe Spirit.

Stephen Sondheim has 8 Tonys to his name: Best Musical for A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum (1963), Best Lyrics for Company (1971), and Best Score for Company, Follies (1972), A Little Night Music (1973), Sweeney Todd (1979), Into The Woods (1988), and Passion (1994), as well as a Special Tony Award for Lifetime Achievement in the Theatre (2008).

Like Stephen Sondheim, Bob Fosse also won 8 awards over the course of his career.

David Alvarez, Trent Kowalik, and Kiril Kulish, the three young dancers who played Billy Elliot, jointly took the award for Best Actor in 2009. Their speech was ADORABLE.