Broadway‘s inaugural group marquee dimming to honor multiple artists and industry members who have passed away will pay tribute to such luminaries as Gene Hackman, Linda Lavin, Helen Gallagher, Quincy Jones, Ken Page and Joan Plowright, among others.
The dimming of all 41 Broadway marquees will occur simultaneously on Tuesday, June 10 at 6:45 p.m. ET, two days after this year’s Tony Awards.
Others being honored by the first group dimming are Marshall Brickman, Richard Chamberlain, William Finn, Athol Fugard, Merle Louise, Tony Roberts, Charles Strouse and Lynne Taylor-Corbett.
The initiation of group dimmings, called Broadway In Memoriam and which will take place four times a year, was announced in March by the newly formed Broadway In Memoriam Committee as a response to criticism over what some in the theater community saw as a process that was both too secretive and too selective.
The practice of dimming theater marquees as a way to honor the passings of stage luminaries has existed at least since the 1950s. Occasional eruptions of controversy were provoked by oversights – most notably after the death of Joan Rivers – but reached a boiling point last year with the rapid succession of the deaths of actors Maggie Smith, Gavin Creel, Adrian Bailey and Ken Page.
While individual dimmings will continue to mark the passings of universally acclaimed stars deemed “profoundly significant” – Stephen Sondheim and Chita Rivera were the examples given when the new practice was announced in March – the group dimmings were devised as a more inclusive approach.
Marquee dimmings have, traditionally, been announced by the Broadway League – the trade organization of theater owners and producers – but in actuality the dimming decisions had always been determined by a committee of Broadway theater owners. The League officially stepped away from its announcing role following last year’s controversy, with the announcements now made for the Broadway in Memoriam Committee by an outside publicity firm.
The quarterly dimmings will take place on the second Tuesday in September, December, March and June.
