TV: Broadway Salutes Angela Lansbury- Inside the American Theatre Wing Gala!

The American Theatre Wing held its annual gala earlier this week, September 15 at The Plaza Hotel (Fifth Avenue at Central Park South), honoring Dame Angela Lansbury, who has served as Honorary Chairman of the American Theatre WingBoard of Trustees since 2010. BroadwayWorld is excited to bring you highlights from inside the gala, as well as interviews with the guests below!

Dame Angela Lansbury has enjoyed an extraordinary career spanning more than seventy years, first as a star of motion pictures, and as an award-winning stage actor in New York and London. Most recently on Broadway, she appeared as Mrs. Sue-Ellen Gamadge in Gore Vidal's The Best Man, and as Madame Armfeldt in Stephen Sondheim's A Little Night Music (Tony Award® nomination). For her energetic portrayal of Madame Arcati in the 2009 revival of Noël Coward's Blithe Spirit, she won her fifth Tony Award®, as well as Drama Desk and Outer Critics Circle Awards. She received her four other Tonys for her triumphant leading-actress turns in the musicals Mame in 1966, Dear World in 1968, the Gypsy revival in 1974, and Sweeney Todd in 1979.

From 1984 to 1996, she made television history starring as Jessica Fletcher on "Murder, She Wrote," the longest-running detective drama series in TV history, winning four of her six Golden Globe Awards. In November 2013, Angela received an Honorary Oscar "for her extravagant achievements in cinematic industry of her career of 75 years." She also received the Kennedy Center Honors in 2000. In 1994, Queen Elizabeth named her a Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire, and promoted to Dame Commander in 2014. Married in 1949, she and husbandPeter Shaw worked together until his death in 2003. She has three children and three grandchildren.

For nearly a century, the Wing has pursued this mission with programs that span the nation to invest in the growth and evolution of American Theatre.Traditionally, the Wing has encouraged members of the theatre community to share their off-stage time and talent directly with the theatre audience at large--whether it was singing for the troops in the Stage Door Canteen of the 1940's, or sharing their stories on a podcast today.