By Mark D. Zimmerman
MELVILLE, New York — The Tony Awards were given out in a ceremony at New York’s Radio City Music Hall, hosted by Cynthia Errivo. Among the Jewish nominees were Jeremy Jordan (Best Actor in a Musical for Floyd Collins), Danny Burstein (Best Featured Actor in a Musical for Gypsy), and Danya Taymor (Best Direction of a Play for John Proctor is the Villain), though none of the Jewish nominees won the Tony.
But the Special Tony Award for Lifetime Achievement in the Theatre was given to Jewish actor and writer Harvey Fierstein. Fierstein previously received four Tony awards, for Torch Song Trilogy (Best Play and Best Actor in a Play), for La Cage Aux Folles (Best Book of a Musical), and for Hairspray (Best Actor in a Musical).
Fierstein was raised in a Conservative Jewish household in Brooklyn, and though he considers himself to be an atheist, he has said that his Judaism influenced his artistic sensibility, noting that “talmudic teaching and reasoning are somewhere in me. They are so dramatic.”
Fierstein has played many Jewish characters, including Arnold Beckoff in Torch Song Trilogy, Bella Abzug in Bella Bella (a solo show which he wrote), and most notably, Tevye in the 2004 Broadway revival of Fiddler on the Roof.
The character Arnold Beckoff is a drag queen and torch singer who Fierstein described in the stage directions as a “kvetch of great wit and want.” What is Beckoff’s drag name in the show?
A. Dilly Pickles.
B. Squirrelly Temple.
C. Barbara Ganoush.
D. Barbie Q. Brisket.
E. Virginia Ham.
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Link to answer: https://rrrjewishtrivia.com/harvey-fierstein-answer.html
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Mark D. Zimmerman is an author and freelance writer based in Melville, New York.