MICHAEL PORTANTIERE: Barbra Streisand never won a competitive Tony Award. What's up with that?
BRINBERG: Well, she only did two Broadway shows, I Can Get It For You Wholesale and Funny Girl. But she was nominated for both of them! And in 1969, she got a special Tony for Star of the Decade. Needless to say, if she ever came back to Broadway in anything, she'd win a Tony. When she lost for Wholesale, to Phyllis Newman for Subways are for Sleeping, I'd chalk that up to her being so young and so new on the scene. The second time, when she lost to Carol Channing in Hello, Dolly!, it was a very different situation. Barbra's performance in Funny Girl was well received, even though some of the critics really didn't like the show. People had no idea she was going to abandon Broadway forever. The Tony voters probably thought, "Oh, she'll have lots of other opportunities to win." Wrong!
MP: She's still pretty good about keeping up with Broadway shows, isn't she?
BRINBERG: She doesn't get to New York that often, but whenever she does, she sees a show. I think the last thing she saw was The Light in the Piazza, early in the run.
MP: How did you decide on a Tony Awards theme for your Birdland show? Is it mostly because of the proximity to the ceremony on June 15?
BRINBERG: Yes, but it also encompasses so much great material from shows that won the Tony for Best Musical.
MP: You have two great guest performers lined up: Siân Phillips and Bobby Steggert.
BRINBERG: Siân is so great. She's on Broadway right now, in Les Liaisons Dangereuses. People forget that the sings, but she's done her own act, and she got a Tony nomination for Marlene. Bobby was on Broadway last season in 110 in the Shade. He wasn't nominated for that, but he should have been!
MP: What can you tell me about the program for the show?
BRINBERG: I think Siân may be doing a Noël Coward number; she mentioned that as a possibility. I'll be doing a duet with Bobby, though I'm not sure what it will be yet. For my solos, I want to do some songs I haven't done before -- like "Kids" from Bye, Bye Birdie, which I'm going to slow down to a snail's pace. And I'm definitely going to do "Another Winter in a Summer Town" from Grey Gardens. I put that in the show last year, and it went over so well.
MP: You always have a section of your show where you imitate other great divas. What do you have planned along those lines?
BRINBERG: I'm working on a medley of performances by famous Tony-nominated women: Gwen Verdon in Sweet Charity, Bea Arthur in Mame. And I may do Lena Horne in The Lady and Her Music; she won a special Tony for that show. I'm also thinking of including a few songs from shows that didn't win the Tony because the awards didn't exist yet, like Anything Goes and Oklahoma!.
MP: There were rumors that Barbra might bring her touring concert to Broadway, which would have given her the opportunity to win a Tony in competition. Do you think there was any real chance of that happening?
BRINBERG: No, but I could almost see her doing a play on Broadway for a limited engagement, like Julia Roberts did. That would cause just as much pandemonium. She's always said that she's an actress first, and that she only sang to put food on the table -- which cracks me up. I'm glad there's talk of her possibly doing movies of four different musicals: Sunset Boulevard, Gypsy, Follies and Ballroom. My dream is that she signs up to do all four of them back-to-back and gets four Oscar nominations. But if she does only one of them, I'll be happy!
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