Tony Awards 2013 Trivia Quiz

Answer: Neil Patrick Harris

From the precocious medical resident on "Doogie Howser, MD" to the shameless philanderer Barney on "How I Met Your Mother", Neil Patrick Harris has combined very successful television roles with stints in films and Broadway. His acclaimed appearances as award show host include not only his four Tony shows but one hosting the Emmy Awards in 2009.

Answer: Tracy Letts, for "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf"

Tracy Letts has been an actor since graduating high school in the early 1980's. In 1985 he joined the famed Steppenwolf Theatre Company in Chicago and has appeared in such plays as "The Glass Menagerie", "Glengarry Glen Ross", and "The Dresser", as well as various TV shows and films.

As a playwright his first produced play was "Killer Joe" in 1993; and in 2008 his play "August: Osage County" won the Tony for Best Play and the Pulitzer Prize for Drama. Its film version stars Meryl Streep and Julia Roberts. Letts won the 2013 Best Actor in a Play Tony for his portrayal of George in the revival of "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf", which was produced by Steppenwolf in 2010 and brought to Broadway in 2012.

Answer: Cyndi Lauper

Cyndi Lauper is a major force in the music industry, whose career as a rock/pop singer and songwriter has been going strong since the mid-1980's. She has had several number-one albums and singles (with sales of over 50 million albums) and had won five Grammy Awards and an Emmy Award (in 1995 for Guest Actress in a Comedy Series for "Mad About You") prior to her Tony victory.

In capturing the Original Score Tony, Lauper became the first woman in history to win the award without a co-writer. As part of the Tony telecast she also delivered a moving rendition of her song "True Colors" in the "In Memoriam" segment.

Answer: Spike

"Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike" (the names are actual characters in the play) is a comedy about family dysfunction. In addition to referencing the works of Anton Chekov through the characters, the play borrows settings (a country home in a cherry orchard) and themes (self-doubt, sibling rivalry, family uprooting). Christopher Durang is famed for his absurdist dramatic works, such as "Das Lusitania Songspiel", in which he acted with his friend and fellow Yale alum Sigourney Weaver, who played Masha in "Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike".

The play also starred Yalie David Hyde Pierce (of "Frasier" fame), Kristine Nielsen, and Billy Magnussen in the other title roles.

Answer: the performer who won a Tony for the same role in the original production was male

The role for which Patina Miller won her Tony in the revival of "Pippin" was called "The Leading Player". It was played in the 1972 production by the actor Ben Vereen, who won the Tony for Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role in a Musical. Patina Miller is an accomplished stage actress, having first attracted notice for her portrayal as Delores Van Cartier (the Whoopi Goldberg role) in the Broadway and London productions of the musical "Sister Act".

Answer: they were both female

This was the second time in Tony history that both winning directors were female. Pam MacKinnon won for directing the play "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf", and Diane Paulus won for directing the musical "Pippin". The productions had other things in common as well: both were revivals, and both began in regional theaters - "Virginia Woolf" at the Steppenwolf Theatre in Chicago, Illinois and "Pippin" at the American Repertory Theater in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

The first time two women won the directing Tonys was in 1998 when Garry Hynes won for the play "The Beauty Queen of Leenane" and Julie Taymor won for the musical "The Lion King".

Answer: TheTrip to Bountiful

Cicely Tyson has appeared on and off-Broadway over a dozen times since the 1950s. In her Tony acceptance speech she spoke about being the last survivor of her family; returning to Broadway for one more/last role after a 30-year absence; and even had a humorous, heartfelt thank-you comeback to the teleprompter's warning to "wrap it up." "The Trip to Bountiful," by Horton Foote, tells the story of an elderly woman's trip back to her idealized childhood hometown in order to escape an unhappy homelife with her nasty daughter-in-law and henpecked-but-overprotective son.

Answer: Courtney B. Vance

Courtney B. Vance played Jonesy in "The Hunt for Red October", and was also in the films "Hamburger Hill", "Dangerous Minds", and "The Preacher's Wife". On television he was in the TV movie "The Tuskegee Airmen", and in "Law and Order: Criminal Intent", "The Closer", and "Revenge".

He has had a very successful Broadway career, earning Tony nominations as Featured Actor in a Play in 1987 for "Fences", and as Best Leading Actor in a Play in 1991 for "Six Degrees of Separation". He is married to Oscar-nominated actress Angela Bassett. "Lucky Guy", the last work by the late Nora Ephron, tells the story of the New York newspaperman Mike McAlary.

Answer: hang upside down from a trapeze

Andrea Martin is an American actress, although many assume she is Canadian because of her association with the Toronto branch of the Second City comedy group, from which came the legendary SCTV series. Besides her Tony-award-winning productions, she has also appeared on Broadway in "Candide", "Oklahoma!", and "Fiddler on the Roof"; and she appeared in the films "Wag the Dog", "My Big Fat Greek Wedding", and "The Producers".

The character of Berthe in "Pippin" is part of its circus troupe, and as such she very much participates in everything with her fellow actors.

Her show-stopping number "No Time at All" exhorts us to live life to its fullest.

Answer: Larry Kramer

Larry Kramer is an Oscar-nominated screenwriter whose writing since the late 1970's has focused generally on gay issues and more specifically on issues related to the HIV/AIDS epidemic and the people caught up in it. In 1980 Kramer co-founded the Gay Men's Health Crisis, which has since become the largest private organization in the world to assist people living with AIDS. Later, frustrated with the slow progress in all areas addressing the issues of the epidemic, he founded the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power - ACT UP - a protest group that strives to change policy through confrontation. Kramer has written critically-acclaimed plays that address the AIDS crisis, most notably "The Normal Heart" and "The Destiny of Me", which have been produced on and off-Broadway and have earned Kramer and their creative teams many awards.