The 2008 Fred & Adele Astaire Awards recognizing excellence in dance on both stage and film have announced that nine time Tony Award & two time Astaire Award winner Tommy Tune will receive the 2008 Fred & Adele Astaire Lifetime Achievement at the awards gala slate for June 2, 2008 at the Grand Ballroom, Manhattan Center Studios, 311 West 34^th Street & 8^th Avenue,  New York City.

 

"The Auditory Oral School of New York is thrilled our prestigious nominating committee chose Tommy Tune to receive the Lifetime Achievement Award. His extraordinary career represents the epitome of what Fred and Adele Astaire worked so hard to achieve.  They would be proud to honor his work and commitment to dance on Broadway”, said Jennifer Dumas Executive Producer of the awards .

 

The Nominating committee is comprised of: Clive Barnes, Senior Theater & Dance Critic New York Post; Anna Kisselgoff, former Chief Dance Critic, New York Times; Wendy Perron, Editor in Chief, Dance Magazine; Sylviane Gold, Theater Columnist, Dance Magazine; Linda Winer,  Chief Theater Critic, Newsday and Jacques D’Amboise, Dancer, Choreographer, Director & Founder of The National Dance Institute. Chairman Emeritus of the Nominating Committee is Douglas Watt, former Senior Drama Critic, New York Daily News. Award winners will be announced in May.  

Honorary Chairs of the event are Fred Astaire’s daughter Ava Astaire McKenzie & her husband artist Richard McKenzie.

 

 

The Nominating Committee for the 2008 Fred & Adele Astaire Awards is currently reviewing select shows and films for consideration for the awards to dancers and choreographers representing the best of Broadway and film performances and choreography this season. The name of the award first presented 26 years ago, The Astaire Award, was changed this year to reflect the original intent of the awards creators in honoring the famed brother and sister team. This will be the first such awards in three years. The award winners will be announced in May.

 

 The Fred & Adele Astaire Awards (formerly known as The Astaire Awards established in 1982 by the Anglo-American Contemporary Dance Foundation and administered by Theatre Development Fund since 1991) recognize outstanding achievement in dance on Broadway each season. The award was established with the cooperation of Fred Astaire to honor him and his sister, Adele, who starred with her brother in 10 Broadway musicals between 1917 and 1931. This year the Awards will be expanded to include dance in and choreography for film as this was the métier that brought Fred Astaire to international fame and a permanent slot on every list of the top movie stars of the century.

The gala evening will begin with cocktails and a seated dinner followed by electrifying performances and the Awards presentation. Sponsorship packages are available at $15,000, $10,000, $5,000 and $3,500. Tickets are $500 (for prime seating) and $350. A limited number of seats are available at $50 for balcony seating for the awards and performance and an invitation to stay for dessert
and dancing.  

Jennifer Dumas, Executive Producer for the Auditory Oral School of New York and Patricia Watt, are producers of this year’s awards. Proceeds from the evening will benefit The Auditory Oral School of New York, a non profit organization which specializes in teaching deaf and hard of hearing children to listen, talk, think and socialize.

For tickets and information, contact Jennifer Dumas, Executive Producer, at 212-655-9377 or jd@auditoryoral.org

ABOUT TOMMY TUNE

 In 2003, The President of The United States presented Tommy Tune with the nation’s highest honor for Artistic Achievement, The National Medal of Arts In a private ceremony in the oval office of the White House, Mr. Tune received this honor to add to his already unprecedented nine Tony Awards in four different categories plus, among other accolades, eight Drama Desk Awards, two Obie Awards, two Astaire Awards, the American Dance Award, the Drama League Award and the George Abbott Award for Lifetime Achievement.

 

It was back in 1965 when Tommy Tune first danced onto the Great White Way and into the chorus of Baker Street. Next up was A Joyful Noise in 1967 and How Now Dow Jones in 1968. Five years and countless raves later Tommy garnered his first Tony Award for Best Featured Actor in a Musical in Michael Bennett's Seesaw.

 

Tune's first foray into directing was the groundbreaking Off-Broadway hit The Club in 1976. Back on Broadway, but this time as choreographer and co-director Tune gave us The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas followed by A Day in Hollywood/A Night in the Ukraine, for which he won his second Tony Award, this time for Best Choreography.

Tommy returned to Off-Broadway in 1981 to direct the highly controversial production of Caryl Churchill’s Cloud 9. The next year Tommy brought us Nine, The Musical for which he won his third Tony, and his first for directing a Broadway Musical.

 

A double Tony Award win followed for Mr. Tune as Best Actor in a Musical and Best Choreography for the Broadway hit My One and Only co-starring Twiggy. Grand Hotel, The Musical followed with Tony wins for Best Choreography and Best Direction and the following year Mr. Tune did what no artist had done before when he won the same two prestigious honors back to back this time for The Will Rogers Follies.

 

Tommy once again returned to the other side of the Broadway footlights in his one-man song and dance show, Tommy Tune Tonight!, later touring with it throughout the country and around the world.

 

Of his unique talents as a director, choreographer, singer, dancer and actor, the New York Times proclaimed, “Mr. Tune has reshuffled the elements of the old-style musical into state of the art.” Andy Warhol once said that Tommy Tune “exudes a cultivated serenity and a genuine love of life.”

 

Tommy has shied away from Hollywood moviemaking, appearing in only two films early in his illustrious career. He was featured in Hello, Dolly! starring Barbra Streisand and directed by Gene Kelly, and in Ken Russell's The Boy Friend where he first met Twiggy.

 

Tune has sung and danced for three U.S. Presidents, the Queen of England and the Royal Family of Monaco. In 1991, Gwen Verdon inducted him into Broadway's Theatre Hall of Fame, and Hollywood soon followed suit when three years later he was honored with his own star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame appropriately placed directly in front of the Capezio Dancewear shop.

 

In 1997 Tommy gave us Footnotes, his memoir about his extraordinary life in the theatre, and Slow Dancin’, a CD compilation of his favorite romantic ballads. The end of the millennium was the beginning of a dream come true for Tommy Tune when he made his Las Vegas debut as the star of EFX, the ninety million dollar spectacular at the MGM Grand Hotel.

When he’s not drawing crowds, Mr. Tune is painting canvases in his Manhattan studio. Not content to entertain audiences on land alone, Tommy has recently created an elaborate musical entitled Paparazzi for the Holland America Line. Mr. Tune's latest production, Dr. Doolittle, in which he played the title role, toured the country in 2006. He is currently preparing two original musicals for the near future.