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A THEATREGOER'S NOTEBOOK
Dancers who won Tony Awards for their performances

And the winner is (clockwise from top l.): Chita Rivera, Honi Coles, Donna McKechnie, Tommy Tune, Hinton Battle, Gwen Verdon, Ben Vereen and Bebe Neuwirth

     "When they called my name, I shot straight out of my seat," says Chita Rivera of the night six years ago when she won the Best Actress Tony Award for her performance in the musical The Rink. "I was floating," says Hinton Battle, two-time Best Featured Actor winner for Sophisticated Ladies (1981) and The Tap Dance Kid (1984). "It was the most exciting night of my life," declares Ben Vereen, 1973 Best Actor for Pippin.
     The natural exuberance of Broadway's best dancers overflows when they recall the moment they won the theatre's most prestigious acting award. In fact, the list of Tony-winning dancers is not terribly long (among the celebrated non-winners: Sandy Duncan, Gregory Hines, Debbie Allen, Ann Reinking), which makes those who have won even more grateful.
     "I never really expected it," insists Donna McKechnie, named Best Actress in 1976 for A Chorus Line. "But when I heard my name, I remember thinking, 'Just give yourself this moment and really appreciate it, because it may never happen again.'" Laughing, she adds, "When I turned to go off the stage, Richard Burton, whom I've always adored, was standing there, and he looked into my eyes and said, 'You deserved it.' Well! I thought I was going to faint."
     For Charles "Honi" Coles, Best Featured Actor of 1983 for My One and Only, the Tony capped a long career as a dancer known primarily to aficionados of tap. "I don't think I would have appreciated the award as much if it happened when I was 25," he says, recalling the atmosphere on Tony as night as "electric with excitement and anticipation."
     By the time Chris Rivera won her award

by Kathy Henderson

At six, he played the Palace.

     While other Salzburd kinder were playing ring-aroung-the-ringelspiel, little Amadeus was performing for Empress Maria Theresa.
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