Klay Young has been part of the team at Rockefeller Center’s Rainbow Room for over 30 years, and for many of those years, May has meant working the Tony Awards Nominee Luncheon. Since 2022, however, the event has meant much more to the legendary server, also known as “Pookie’s dad.”

Tony Award-winning actress Kara Young with her father Klay Young, a long-time Rainbow Room server

That’s because the daughter he calls “Pookie” happens to be Broadway actress Kara Young, who first attended the luncheon as a Tony Award nominee herself that year. And while it was Kara who was stepping into stardom, it was Klay who was given a headline-making standing ovation as the Rainbow Room showed their appreciation for his service and genuine excitement for his family. At the time, costume designer Emilio Sosa told The New York Times it was “one of those once-in-a-lifetime moments,” adding, “There wasn’t a dry eye in the room.”

As her proud father could have predicted, 2022 was far from Kara’s last time securing a seat at that table. In fact, she has been nominated for Best Featured Actress in a Play every year since, tying the all-time record for most consecutive Tony nominations by a performer. The “Purpose” star is also the first Black actress to secure four consecutive nominations, and 2025 is her chance to become the first Black performer to win two consecutive Tony Awards. Klay was by Kara’s side as she won her first Tony for her role in “Purlie Victorious” on Father’s Day last year, a moment he called “cosmic.” Every time Kara has attended the awards show, she’s brought her dad as her date.

Actress Kara Young and her father Klay Young holding hands during an interview

To call these two a tight-knit father-daughter duo would be an understatement. In a recent interview in The New York Times, Kara mentioned she still lives just three blocks from where she was born, in West Harlem, a neighborhood that has meant so much to Klay since he first arrived from Belize in 1973. She also named her dad’s home as her favorite spot for Sunday dinners, crediting his incredible cooking to his decades at the Rainbow Room, watching “some of the best chefs ever.”

“My father makes really great Thai food, fantastic Indian food, and, of course, traditional Belizean food. We get to taste a little bit of his hospitality education through his meals,” she said. Kara saw much of this firsthand, visiting the Rainbow Room countless times with her dad throughout her childhood.

As Broadway’s biggest night approaches on June 8, we sat down with Klay and Kara to talk about unforgettable theater moments, life lessons passed between generations, and the Rainbow Room’s recurring role as a Young family landmark.

Q: What’s your nickname for your daughter?

Klay: Pookie!

Q: When did the nickname come up?

Klay: From her childhood!

Kara: It’s always been Pookie.

Klay: My little Pookie!

Q: When did you know your daughter was going to be a Broadway actress?

Klay: She’s always loved the stage. At a very, very young age, there was a dance troupe in Harlem, and she said they were moving too slow for her age.

Kara: I started these dance classes and they ended up advancing me — I was the youngest one with all the older girls. They put me in this dance where I had to learn it really fast, and you had to carry a basket while dancing — it was an African dance. This is actually on tape. I was supposed to put the basket down, but I just kept dancing with it the whole time.

Klay: And then all of a sudden the basket fell, and she knew to keep dancing anyway.

Q: When you were a little girl, what was the coolest thing about your dad?

Kara: Magic surrounds my father in a way that I can’t actually describe, and it’s always been that way. One of the earliest memories of my father is supporting the kids at my elementary school who didn’t have fathers. He would be right there for those young boys or girls and be a father to them. My father took me to school every day. He always made sure we had food ready for us when we came home. He would go on all of our trips with us.

He was that guy. And this magic that I speak about, that surrounds my dad, he’s a magnet to beautiful people.

Our parents taught us to say good morning and good night to everyone, no matter what their socioeconomic status was. We knew everyone on the block not by name but by spirit, by heart, by face. And it didn’t matter how you were living in the world. There was respect with every single person in our community because of the way my father was with everyone in the neighborhood.

Klay: Life is beautiful in a lot of ways. It’s just how you make it. Making it is always a connection with people.

Q: What’s the most memorable Tony Awards year for you?

Broadway star Kara Young posing in front of a mirror with her dad, Klay Young

Kara: That magic I talk about with my dad — it was all there that day, last year. And it wasn’t just because I won for “Purlie Victorious.” That moment was about legacy — about resurrecting the artistry of Ossie Davis, Ruby Dee, and everything they gave to American theater. It also happened to be Father’s Day. It was my third nomination, and my dad had been my date every time. And then, on Father’s Day, I win a Tony.

Klay: That was cosmic.

Kara: It’s beyond what it is. It was the same way the very first time I was nominated for a Tony. In that very room. In the Rainbow Room. Emilio Soza was about to present to me my nomination plaque. He says that there is a man who was beaming with pride this morning at our rehearsal. His name is Klay Young, and his daughter is Kara Young. And my father walks out in his uniform with a Diet Coke on a serving tray. And the entire room rose to their feet, and they were weeping from love. It was magical. It’s him.

Klay: I’ve been here at the Rainbow Room since 1991. Throughout the years, I’ve brought my family at least four times a year. I try to give them a sense of what’s outside of our neighborhood. I tried to give them a larger view of what we are. Coming here gave them a different outlook on things. We traveled a lot, too. And now, for her to come back here as part of her own journey — it feels like this place is part of her makeup.

Kara: I was just a baby, but I grew up coming here to the Rainbow Room, and it is a part of my foundation. It’s wild that this is the fourth year that I will be getting a nomination plaque in the Rainbow Room. And mind you, there are no plus ones for the Tony luncheon, so my father, as a staff member, is my unofficial date.

Kara: He has pictures of everybody in the home I grew up in. You walk through a hall and it’s Oprah, and Bill Clinton, Don King…

Klay: Movers and shakers from around the world, I’ve seen and been around and taken care of. Stevie Wonder, Hillary Clinton, Bob Hope, Phyllis Diller, David Rockefeller… Now Kara’s joining the wall!

The Rainbow Room has been a beautiful place for me. It has offered a lot in terms of my family, and the dedication I have to this place is because when they ask me, ‘Are you going to work?’ I don’t go to work, I go to have fun. I keep it at that! Every day when I come here. It’s like I’m in the theater. This is my theater.

The beautiful thing is you’re around people, and of course, my co-workers. I’ve been in this building 40 years. It’s like my home. Like I said, I love what I do. The moment it starts to become a job, it’s time to quit. And I’ve never had that inkling in my life.

Q: Is meeting people at Rainbow Room your favorite part?

Actress Kara Young sits with her father, Klay Young, inside the Rainbow Room

Klay: The life it has given us. I put my wife through school. And that’s because I was thinking through the future. If there is one breadwinner and that falls, then you have a problem. So during those years when my wife was at school, we made sure everything was balanced.

And of course with a view like this. I call this my office view every day. Who wouldn’t want to be in a position like this? You know, whoa. The best part of New York isn’t the noise. It’s the beauty of it. It’s when the sun goes down and the lights come up.

Q: Kara, how about yourself? What’s your favorite part about the Rainbow Room?

Kara: I think the familial quality of being here is one of the most special things. Obviously, Dad works here, but ever since I was a little kid, every time I came around these parts, I was like, ‘Oh my dad works here, this feels like home.’ I’m a New Yorker. It’s fair to say there are city landmarks in your life, and this is one of them.

Klay: I gave both of my kids initials K.E.Y. The reason for that is, I let them know they are the key to their life. They are the key to everything that they do. So whatever you want in life. You are the key to opening the doors in front of you and closing a door behind you if there is no need for it.