Show Notes

#23: Almost Craig A. Meyer – Behind the Tony Awards

Sally Henry Fuller
Click here to listen to #23: Almost Craig A. Meyer – Behind the Tony Awards

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One minute you’re an outspoken Actors’ Equity Association member, and the next you’re a councilor shaking things up in AEA and voting for the Tony Awards. That’s basically how it happened for Craig A. Meyer. Today host Sally Fuller is joined by the triple-threat whose mile-long resume includes Broadway, Disney, and a 20-year stint as a Tony voter. Join our theatre nerd chat as Meyer reveals how he ended up touring the world as Sir Elton John, why he did not vote for The Lion King to win Best Musical, and what it takes to tell a great story on stage.

Shout-outs

  • Craig A. Meyer rocks our socks off. Check out his amazing show “Remember When Rock was Young: the Elton John Tribute,” coming to a theatre/streaming site near you!
  • Our favs: Sir Elton John, Remember When Rock Was Young: the Elton John , Actor’s Equity Association, George Ives, ActorsEquity.org, Rodgers and Hammerstein, Rodgers and Hart, TributeJekyll & Hyde, Frank Wildhorn, Leslie Bricusse, Robert Cuccioli, Audra McDonald, War Horse, Julie Harris, The King and I, Kelli O’Hara, Ragtime, Marin Mazzie, The Lion King, E.L. Doctorow, In the Red and Brown Water, Alliance Theatre’s Hertz Stage, Into the Woods, Jon Lawrence Rivera, Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark, The Scarlet Pimpernel, Douglas Sills, Barry Manilow, Michael Crawford, Guys and Dolls, Kevin Carlyle, Ken Welch, Mitsie Welch, The Carol Burnett Show, Elizabeth Ward Land, The Thing About Men, Linda Ronstadt, Still Within the Sound of My Voice, Tony Awards, Marge Champion, Gower Champion, Legally Blonde, Victor/Victoria, Thoroughly Modern Millie, Sutton Foster, Mark Rylance, The Color Purple, Peter and the Starcatcher, David Yazbek, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, The Full Monty, Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown, Susan Lucci, Stephen Schwartz, Wicked, Avenue Q, The Gershwin Theatre
  • Special thanks to Peachy Corners Cafe, Crazy Love Coffeehouse, Land of a Thousand Hills Coffee, Ground & Pound Coffee, and Noble & Main for being the best editing offices.
  • BGP would not be possible without behind-the-scenes team members Thomas Fuller and Elise Friderich.

Bonus Gallery

  • Photo credit: BJOERN KOMMERELL Bjoernkommerell.com
  • Craig, front and center, in 42nd Street
  • Craig (far left) on Barry Manilow’s Showstoppers tour
  • Craig (far right) singing “Fugue for Tinhorns” on Barry Manilow’s Showstoppers tour
  • [clang clang clang went the trolley…]
  • Craig does not mess around as Elton John!
  • Bringing down the house as Elton John
    Photo credit: John Paul Van Wert

Bonus Videos

For the budding theatre fans

For the fangirls

Try not to cry when watching this featurette on the character of “Mother” in Ragtime, featuring Marin Mazzie’s performance of her section of the opening song as well as her showstopping number, “Back to Before”

For the die-hards

Craig says he voted for Ragtime to win the Tony Award for Best Musical over The Lion King. Watch both of these performances and decide for yourself whom you would have voted for!

Addendums

The beautiful Douglas Sills we were talking about. This pic was taken twenty years after Craig beat him out for the Barry Manilow tour, and directly after I saw him in the tour of The Addams Family, and moments before this pic was taken, he had just said to me, “It sounds like your heart is about to beat right out of your chest.” This 18-year-old was swooning.

Susan Lucci starred in All My Children as Erica Kane from 1977-2011, and was nominated almost every year for the Daytime Emmy for Best Actress, and she only won once. Similarly, Stephen Schwartz has been nominated for his smash-hit musicals and has yet to win a Tony Award.

Read more about the crazy story about how the producers of Avenue Q campaigned hard enough to beat Wicked in my article about it, “The Producer’s Guide to Stealing a Tony, or How WICKED Lost to AVENUE Q.” (The Avenue Q campaign was called “Vote Your Heart.”)

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Published by Sally Henry Fuller