Video: Meet the 2023 Recipients of Special Tony Awards

So here you wore the Isabel Stevenson

Isabel Stevenson, Tony Award. Can you imagine? Isn't it crazy? Such an honor

Overwhelming. The week has been overwhelming with love and wishes from everyone

And yesterday we had the sign up for Broadway Bears 31. And there were at least 50 kids who have never done the show

So it's just such a. testament to what it has become, which is this community building fundraising thing that has just

taken off. It's its own animal. And I've never been more proud of anything in my life

Okay. Dreaming when we all grew up, you dream about watching the Tony's, maybe coming to Broadway

maybe directing and choreographing something, maybe winning a Tony Award. Seeing Isabelle Stevens

on the Tony Awards. So it must have been cool for you, like to have known Isabelle Stevens in

and all of a sudden you're getting the... She was a dancer. Yeah. So, you know, it's just crazy to think that a dancer is getting the Isabel Stevenson Award

Because that's what I am. I'm a dancer first. I was always a dancer. But a dancer choreographer director And yeah it crazy Where will this one live in your home Oh there just on the piano with all the other stuff Isn that cool though It like kind of an old MGM movie or something

It's like a piano filled with, I'm sure, beautiful pictures and awards and everything

Lots of great pictures. Family, friends, awards, musical scores from all the shows that I've loved and worked on and admired

Yeah, it's really special. And just seeing all the, like, Adelaie Ashford, who you can't

In Kinky Boots. I mean, just seeing... Bonnie, who was in Kinky Boots

I mean, Jay, another Kinky Boots alum. All of them. I'm so proud of all of them

And I think they're real contenders. Their performances are spectacular. How excited are you

This is a big deal, right? It is a huge deal, and I'm ecstatic about it

It's amazing. Amazing. You have a Tony PIN. Yes, I do. Oh, my God

This is great. I'm just... I'm still, like, uplifted, right? I don't know, yeah

So visit your production stage manager. Yes, I'm a production stage manager

Most of my career has been on Broadway. Right now, I've heightened more into a production supervisor

So I just keep going up and up and up, and it's amazing to be recognized for it

It's got to be a surreal moment. This is the world you live in You call these shows you hear the audience the curtain goes up and now you being honored Exactly It like now I on the stage and I usually what behind the scenes So it incredible

Well, now you step forward today. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. And to be seen and stage managers are important, and we do it, it's great

What would look back when you were really, really young wanting to start out in this business

what would the older self tell your younger self? Oh my goodness

My oldest self would tell my younger self, guess what? It's going to happen

Just keep going. Yeah. And you win a Tony Honor. And I'm going to win a Tony Honor

It's great. This is amazing to think that an accountant from Queens could actually get an award

that includes a Tony Award nominee, or not a nominee, but an honor, has been incredible

And it's been an amazing journey of working in an industry of amazing people in such a creative and wonderful way

And so it's been fantastic. But you had a stressful job for these years, right

Well, for some of my earlier years, I had a very stressful job

The firm that I was with, we would tabulate the Tony Award ballots, and then we would be backstage

holding onto these envelopes for dear life, refusing to part with them

so afraid I'd give the wrong envelope to the wrong person. And so the stage manager would be trying to pull the envelopes from me to hand out and I wouldn let them go until I actually could give it to the presenter and I checked about 30 times The worst three hours of my life were the Tony Awards This one is going to be the best three hours of my life and I can wait for

that. So it's so exciting. When did you first fall in love with the theater? I fell in love

with the theater. I wanted to be a musician and that was my passion when I was a teenager. It didn't

work out. My father said become an accountant because at least she'll always make a living and then

lo and behold, I was able to be in this amazing industry and just get to this point where I could

actually provide service and be of value, which is really the best honor of all to amazing people

doing an amazing job. Because it must be so great to be like backstage and all this stuff, seeing all these entertainers

that work on Broadway. Well, some would say I know where all the skeletons in the closets are buried, but, you know

I don't ever let any of that out. That stays with me. It goes where I go

But it's just really great to work with amazing people. who actually care about what I say, who luckily don't know what I'm saying

so they never challenge it, and it's always just where it goes, it goes. So it's been great

Where will your Tony Honor live in your home? I think my Tony, my Tony, Honor, will probably either live in the restaurant that I just opened

or on my desk, somewhere