(Michael Paulson’s article appeared in The New York Times, 5/6; via Pam Green.)
They met in the hallway of the Paramount Hotel. It was the annual Tony-nominees-meet-the-mediaevent, and Chita Rivera, 82, was about to leave for her matinee performance when she spotted a fellow nominee, 11-year-old Sydney Lucas. She stopped, said hello, posed for a few photos. And then, while mugging for the cameras, the oldest of this year’s acting nominees pointed at the youngest and cracked, “Before, and after.”
“I was in dance school at her age,” Ms. Rivera recalled a few days later, when she and Ms. Lucas sat down to talk. “I had no intention of being anything else, other than I loved dancing.”