Broadway As Art: Al Hirschfeld

Oh, Broadway, how I love thee! I recently wrote about that I was very excited about the upcoming Tony Awards and rooting for The Color Purple. Well — guess what — we won! The show won the Tony for Best Musical Revival and Cynthia Erivo won for Best Actress in a Musical! It was a truly magical night.

The evening made me think about Broadway’s rich history and brought back memories of Al Hirschfeld who was known for his famous caricatures of Broadway stars. If you were anyone on Broadway before 2003, you got Hirschfelded.

In a tribute to Hirschfeld, the Martin Beck Theatre – one of the oldest on Broadway – was renamed the Al Hirschfeld Theatre last week in 2003.

Here are just a few of my favorite Hirschfeld portraits.