What you didn't see on the Tony telecast

What you didn't see on the Tony telecast -- EW.com takes you backstage and to the Tony after-parties for news about Gwyneth, Whoopi, Elaine Stritch, and more

Thoroughly Modern Millie
Photo: Tony Awards: Suzanne Plunkett/AP Photo

If there was a theme to Tony night 2002 — a.k.a. the one AFTER ”The Producers” — it was sharing. Almost everyone left Radio City Music Hall a winner…unlike last year, when that Nathan Lane/Matthew Broderick musical juggernaut swept practically all the silver in the house. (And speaking of those ”Producers,” where were they? Nathan? Matthew? Mel? Was someone afraid they’d take THIS year’s awards too?)

Eleven shows split 22 statuettes on Sunday — from newcomer ”Urinetown the Musical” to Turgenev’s ”Fortune’s Fool,” from ”Private Lives” to ”Noises Off” — with ”Thoroughly Modern Millie” at the head of the pack. The I-heart-NY musical took six trophies, including the Best Musical award. Best Play went to what scribe Edward Albee calls a ”love story”: ”The Goat,” the tale of a man, a woman, and who — er — what, comes between them.

EW.com brings you some of the highlights you didn’t see on TV:

Blythe Danner — at the Tonys to present a special award to Massachusetts’ Williamstown Theatre Festival — admitted she’s seen daughter Gwyneth Paltrow on stage in London’s Proof ”three times. As any good mother should.” She went on to applaud her daughter’s dedication to the theater. ”Winning an Oscar was wonderful,” Danner said, but weeks later starring in Williamstown’s ”As You Like It” made her ”proudest of that.” Former chorus girl Danner also treated the press to a few bars of the 1967 closed-on-the-road musical ”Mata Hari.”

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