Oscar Hammerstein Award years. Past recipients include Stephen Sondheim, Angela Lansbury, Betty Comden & Adolph Green, Harold Prince, Cy Coleman, Charles Strouse, Arthur Laurents, Jerry Herman, Stephen Schwartz, Peter Stone, David Merrick, John Kander & Fred Ebb, Terrence McNally, Sir Cameron Mackintosh, Carol Channing, Tony Walton, Joseph Stein, Thomas Meehan, Jerry Bock and Sheldon Harnick, Barbara Cook, Paul Gemignani, Lynn Ahrens & Stephen Flaherty. In December 2016, the 25th Oscar Hammerstein Award was presented to Joel Grey in a star-studded tribute evening. Oscar Hammerstein Award The Oscar Hammerstein Award for Lifetime Achievement in Musical Theatre is named in honor of American lyricist and
Willie Hammerstein vaudeville theatre on 110th Street, Manhattan, called Little Coney Island. He also managed burlesque shows. Willie Hammerstein managed his father's Olympia Theater, which opened in 1895. In November 1896 Willie Hammerstein brought the Cherry Sisters to the Olympia roof garden. The sisters put on a terrible act where they sang sentimental, dialect or patriotic songs. One of them played the piano and another banged a drum. Willie knew how bad they were. He provided a net that protected them when the audience, as expected, started throwing produce and garbage at the stage. The word spread, and the sisters became a