Broadway in memoriam tribute commemorates the stars the stage lost in 2020

No Broadway this year meant a lot of things, the big thing being no stage = no Tony Awards. Because of that, there wasn't a collective platform to mourn the stars we lost this year in the theater community. So, producers Mike Karns and Steven Tartick conceived and produced Broadway Remembers, a video in memoriam tribute to commemorate those names.

Actor Raúl Esparza, who performs a song in the memoriam, directed the eight-minute-long video with music direction from Mary-Mitchell Campbell. Broadway's original Ariel in The Little Mermaid, Sierra Boggess, who has experience playing Christine in The Phantom of the Opera, also performed the Andrew Lloyd Webber piece "Wishing You Were Somehow Here Again."

"As we ring in a new year, it felt important for us to celebrate the lives we've lost these past many months," Esparza said in a statement. "Normally, we have the occasion to collectively mourn at in-person memorial services, funerals, and—once a year at the Tony Awards, with the official in memoriam segment. This year all of that proved impossible, so this is an opportunity for us to process our grief and give these towering figures one final ovation."

Some of those figures include Ann Reinking, Rebecca Luker, Nick Cordero, Adam Schlesinger, Lynn Cohen, Diana Rigg, James Lipton, Brian Dennehy, Larry Kramer, and Ian Holm.

Broadway Remembers also features music production by Benedict Braxton-Smith, graphic design by Remy Kass, motion design by Pan Wenquan, and editing by Harry Tuman.

Related content:

• Stars we lost in 2020
• Broadway star Rebecca Luker from The Sound of Music and The Music Man revivals dies at 59
• Ann Reinking, Tony winner and star of Chicago, dies at 71