She made Darth Vader gasp.

Christina Applegate danced around a lamppost at the center of the Radio City Music Hall's cavernous stage--and promptly fell into the pit.

Nominee James Earl Jones, the star of On Golden Pond and the voice of CNN , Verizon, and Star Wars, was so shocked he had a hand over his mouth.

The crowd drew its collective breath--until the audience realized that Applegate's fall was a delightful comic setup executed by a stunt double, and they began to laugh and applaud.

Choreographers, Applegate said, make "clumsy stars look graceful."

It was a gag recreation of that notorious moment when Applegate broke her foot during a Chicago tryout of the Broadway revival of Sweet Charity. It was the fall that almost stopped the revival's Broadway opening [click for details].

Pulling herself back up on stage, Applegate went on to present the Tony Award for Best Choreography to Jerry Mitchell for his work on La Cage aux Folles.

Randy Gener is the senior editor of American Theatre magazine and the author of the plays, Love Seats for Virginia Woolf and What Remains of a Rembrandt Torn into Four Pieces, among others.

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The Tony Awards are presented by Tony Award Productions, a joint venture of the League of American Theatres and Producers and the American Theatre Wing.