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TONY COUPLES

for Phyllis Frelich, a founding member of the National Theatre of the Deaf, who had been deaf since birth. Audiences, critics -- and Tony voters- agreed that her performance was full of heartrending emotion and towering strength.

[[image-black and white photo of Frelich and Rubinstein]]
[[caption]] Frelich and Rubinstein won for their moving performances in Children of A Lesser God [[/caption]]

They felt the same about John Rubinstein, who portrayed the teacher, James Leeds. In the play, Robinson spoke for himself and his co-star. He said and signed his lines and said hers aloud as she signed them to him. He took,  he said, only four weeks to learn sign language he needed.
The woman in the play, Sarah Norman, considers herself an equal in every way to those who unlike her, can hear. Not surprisingly Sarah bore more than a passing resemblance to the actress who played her.

Frelich has often sad that to her, deafness was not a handicap. "It was like having brown hair", she once said, in sign language, in an interview with The Times. " I never questioned it."

BEN HARNEY AND JENNIFER HOLLIDAY, DREAMGIRLS, 1942

The dictionary defines "coup de theatre" as "a sudden sensational turn in a play." An equally valid definition would be Jennifer Holliday singing "And I Am Telling You I'm Not Going" to Ben Harney near the end of Act I in Dreamgirls. 

And what emerged from Holliday's lips after a long and agonized voyage from deep in her body and soul, was a piercing cry of musical rage. a paroxysm of agony and disbelief, replete with the pain of blues and the power of gospel. She is not going, she sang, she shouted, she demanded again and again, louder and louder, more and more frenzied.   

The strength of the song Holliday said at the time, came out of the problems she had with Dreamgirls' director and choreographer. Michael Bennett. She had taken part in the show's first workshop, dropped out and then came back only to find that Elffie's story had taken what she felt was a back seat to another plot line. She spoke to Bennett. He fired her. She quit. More than a month later, they were reconciled.  

Harney, who came to Dreamgirls after playing the Tinman in The Wiz and performed in Ain't Misbehavin ' is a devout Christian who on winning his Tony gave "all the praise, honor and glory" of Tony night to the Lord.

[[image-black and white photo of a man and woman staring off camera]]
[[caption]] MARTHA SWOPE [[/caption]]

CONTINUED ON PAGE 47

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