Dame Anna Wintour appeared visibly emotional during the Only Make Believe Gala on Broadway in New York City on October 13. Attended by HELLO!, the evening honored its award recipients while raising funds to support Only Make Believe’s interactive theatre programming for children in hospitals, care facilities, and schools through special education programs. Anna, Vogue's global editorial director, was the James Hammerstein Award honoree. The 75-year-old's voice wavered as she reflected on her upbringing in the theater, the importance of sharing that experience with her daughter, the current political and medical climate, and how theater continues to give her hope for the future.
"All this is work that I think defines the special art of theater, which I know means everything to many of us today," she said on stage. "Sharing it with children who need a bright beacon in their lives, seems to me the strongest instrument of healing that is for them and for us as a society too. I know how much the theater means to children because believe it or not, I was once a child."
Anna reminisced about her parents’ deep appreciation for the arts and the influence it had on her. "My parents loved the stage. My father, who was for many years the editor of the London Evening Standard, started the newspaper's Theater Awards. And my parents would take us to see holiday productions of Peter Pan, who at that point, seemed always to be played by sturdily built women of a certain age, and it is a testament to the power of the child's imagination that even this inevitable grandmother in a leotard always seemed to us the very essence of Peter Pan," she shared.
She continued: "By the time that I had children of my own, I made sure to bring them to the theater whenever I could, which might have been a bit more often than was prudent. When my daughter Bee was also about 10, I took her to the wonderful production of Cabaret starring Natasha Richardson. And the horrified usher glanced at her and whispered to me that that production was not suitable for children. Something must have connected because Bee has now given her own life over to the theater as a very successful and extremely talented producer."
Anna went on to emphasize the importance of theater in today's political climate, highlighting the vital role young people will play in preserving its relevance and value. "They need it now more than ever, when American medicine and science seems at the mercy of misunderstanding and bad faith. These are not easy times for the theater either or for any of the arts. We see both funding and platforms for new, exciting, daring work produced almost by the second, and that's true even or perhaps especially because we see how fully theater can explore the human quandaries of our present world," she shared.
"The stage is our great collective space for facing our world in real terms. Being here with all of you tonight gives me hope, gives me hope in the prospect of joy and community for a generation of children growing up in hard circumstances in a hard time," she added. Anna concluded by looking to the future and thanking the audience for her award. "And it lifts my spirits about the future of this extraordinary art. If theater is to continue to survive and to grow over the decades ahead, it may be because a new generation, the generation that is now children, recognizes the value of the stage as a human instrument, and that's the gift of only making believe to all of us. Thank you for asking me to be on stage tonight."