Stars From Every Corner of Broadway Gathered for Anna Wintour and Bee Carrozzini’s Annual Toast to the Theater Season

Reported by Vogue.

Every spring, before the Tony Awards turn Broadway into a competitive sport, Anna Wintour and her daughter Bee Carrozzini throw a dinner party that functions as something closer to a reunion than a pre-show warm-up. According to Vogue, roughly 50 members of New York's theater world descended on Wintour's Manhattan townhouse Sunday night — cocktails in the living room, seated dinner downstairs, and a cake courtesy of pastry chef Daniel Colonel — for what the hosts themselves framed as an antidote to the industry's endless "warm salads" and competitive gala circuit. "The spirit of the World Cup isn't about winning," Carrozzini told the room. "It's about bringing everyone together."

The talent assembled made that framing easy to sell. Directors Kenny Leon (The Balusters), Whitney White (Liberation), and Lear DeBessonet — whose Ragtime revival hauled in 11 Tony nominations — arrived early, followed by a procession of their casts. Ragtime's Joshua Henry showed up in butter yellow; Caissie Levy floated in wearing powder-blue Prada; Brandon Uranowitz kept it sharp in Saint Laurent. Zhailon Levingston and Bill Rauch, co-directors of the wildly reimagined Cats: The Jellicle Ball, arrived in matching commitment to suiting — Levingston in a tonal gray Byrd-Olivieri, Rauch in salmon pink with midcentury brooches. "It's the biggest blessing ever," said Levingston, who admitted he's "white-knuckling it" to the June 7 broadcast.

Between Runs, Between Roles

For many guests, the party was a rare exhale mid-sprint. Kara Young, currently starring opposite Ayo Edebiri in Proof, will spend several weeks in June simultaneously rehearsing The Whoopi Monologues — Whitney White's bold five-woman adaptation of Whoopi Goldberg's iconic 1984 one-woman show, opening at Lincoln Center's Newhouse Theater this summer. Aaron Tveit, three weeks from closing Chess alongside Lea Michele and Nicholas Christopher, was candid about the toll of a Benny Andersson/Björn Ulvaeus score eight shows a week: "This one in particular has been difficult. But you get to just let it rip." Andrew Lloyd Webber, whose catalog is currently enjoying a full-scale cultural renaissance — from Cats to Jamie Lloyd's Sunset Boulevard to a forthcoming Evita starring Rachel Zegler at the Winter Garden in 2027 — spent Friday night moonlighting as DJ Webz outside the Broadhurst. His review of the evening, delivered in full received pronunciation: "It was actually great fun."

The room ran on mutual admiration as much as anything else. Webber clasped Caissie Levy's hands to praise her Mother in Ragtime. Rocky Horror director Sam Pinkleton raved about Titaníque. Carrie Coon — arriving in sharp-shouldered Yves Klein-blue Mugler — relayed her playwright husband Tracy Letts's backhanded compliment about musical theater performers: "Oh yes, those people are actually talented." And near the end of the night, Ayo Edebiri and Adrien Brody bonded over the plague of audience phones before Edebiri quoted Sir Ralph Richardson, passed to her via Tessa Thompson: "Acting is merely the art of keeping a large group of people from coughing."

The best Broadway party of the season turns out to be the one where nobody's keeping score yet.

Read the original at Vogue.