Leslie Uggams was six years old when she saw her aunt perform in a production of “Porgy and Bess” with Leontyne Price. “I was, like, I want to do that,” she told the audience at Hard Rock Café, while  accepting the Theatre World Awards Lifetime Achievement – fifty-eight years after she was given her first Theatre World Award for her Broadway debut in “Hallelujah, Baby,” portraying a woman determined to have a career in show business. 

Her speech and those of some of the other Theatre World Award winners you can watch below, suggest just how much determination it takes.

“When did you know you’d be a professional performer,” I asked Conrad Ricamora, a former Theatre World Award winner (and current Tony nominee) who was there as one of the presenters.

“I still don’t know that I’m a professional performer. I just knew that I wanted to tell stories, and that I would do that for the rest of my life, whether I was getting paid for it or not.”

Alana Arenas said it felt apt that she is making her Broadway debut in a play entitled “Purpose.”: “It feels like an affirmation from God that I am to the best of my ability walking in my purpose,”

Her director, Phylicia Rashad, who introduced her, certainly seemed to agree: “What an amazing artist. Clean. Raw. Prepared. Spontaneous. Connected on every level to her work and every other artist on the stage.”

Wow. Theater award season at its best is a time for some serious affirmation.