ANNE REEVES

Anne Reeves column appears on

PAGE A3.
BY LINDA WINER
Newsday
NEW YORK
l
Its 68th an-
nual Tony Awards time
on Broadway tonight,
though the fancy theat-
rical equivalent of keg
parties has been popping
corks around Times
Square for days.
Grosses are up 11.4
percent from last year,
which already had been
up 5.4 percent from the
year before. In dollars,
that means a
record $1.27
billion.
In an in-
dustry that
prefers not
to call attention to high
ticket prices, however,
the more signicant
gure is the 5.6 percent
rise in attendance that
is, actual bodies in the
seats.
So were happy, right?
The season has been
busy and unusually rich
in variety, from orig-
inal musicals to new
American plays and
smash classic revivals of
Shakespeare, Pinter and
Beckett.
Then why do we feel
so ambivalent about the
Tonys this year? Why do
the nominations reect so
little of those riches?
Maybe its because so
many of the nominations
seemed almost arbitrary,
even random, and many
of the deserving plays
and artists were ignored.
For starters, Denzel
Washington, Daniel Rad-
clife, Ian McKellen, Pat-
rick Stewart, Marisa To-
mei, Toni Collette, Debra
Messing, James Franco
and Zachary Quinto were
simply left out.
How could the aston-
ishing revivals of Machi-
nal and The Winslow
INSIDE
Surprises
and snubs,
PAGE D10.
Stars missing
from showy
Tony Awards
nominations
Please see TONYS on Page D10
LIVING
PENNLIVE.COM/LIVING SUNDAY, JUNE 8, 2014 D1
Sharing the
Five things you probably
didnt know about Nancy
1. She was a late bloomer who graduated from college at
age 30 and received a masters degree in journalism at 42.
2. Two days a week in the spring
and fall semesters, she teaches
writing at York College of
Pennsylvania.
3. She credits her mother
for encouraging her
inquisitiveness and the
nuns who taught her in
school for developing her
writing ability.
4. She and her best
friend of 50 years met in a
Weis store where both were
employed as part-time cashiers
in high school.
5. In the last 15 years, she has shared
her home at various times with her father, three grandchil-
dren, two great-grandchildren, an elderly aunt who was in
hospice care and her son, who was dying of cancer.
extraordinary
JOE HERMITT, PennLive
Nancy, who celebrates 25 years writing columns for PennLive/The Patriot-News, stands in front of the newspaper printing press.
R
ecently, I participated in
Career Day at Lawnton
Elementary School in
Swatara Twp. After I
shared the PowerPoint
I had created, a student
asked if I had ever written about Pres-
ident Barack Obama.
l
I wracked my brain, but couldnt recall any
Obama columns, so I tried to score points by noting that I had attend-
ed the inauguration festivities for President Bill Clinton.
The students mouth dropped, and I believe I could hear her think-
ing, My goodness, woman, how old are you?
I suppose to an elementary school kid, the 90s are ancient history,
but from my perspective, they seem like yesterday.
Inspired by the simple, good, average people that took extra steps to make this world a better place,
Nancy reects on her 25 years as a columnist with The Patriot-News and PennLive.
NANCY ESHELMAN | 25 YEARS OF COLUMNS
NANCY ESHELMAN | COMMENTARY
PLEASE SEE NANCY ON PAGE D2
FOR MORE
Get to know Nancy and her
history with The Patriot-News.
A Q&A about her book A Piece of My
Mind, a collection of columns.
Read excerpts from a few of Nancys
25 years worth of columns.
For more columns, visit
pennlive.com/nancyeshelman.
PAGE D2
IF YOU WATCH
The 68th annual Tony Awards
air 8-11 tonight on CBS.
Hugh Jackman hosts for the
fourth time, returning after a
nine-year hiatus.
Presenters and performers
include Neil Patrick Harris, Sting,
Carole King, Liev Schreiber, Clint
Eastwood, Maggie Gyllenhaal,
Kenneth Branagh, Alan Cumming,
Audra McDonald, Bradley Cooper,
Kevin Bacon, Will Ferrell, Ethan
Hawke, Idina Menzel, Zach Braff,
Gloria and Emilio Estefan and
Zachary Quinto.