We are all familiar with the awards for some of the major arts: television has the Emmy, music has the Grammy, movies have the Oscar, and theater has the Tony. Each award has a huge event, bringing hundreds of millions of people watching each year. Of course, each award is a huge honor that requires hard work and recognition. Winning one of these awards means earning so much respect in the entertainment community and completely changing your life. But, what if you won all four of these awards? At that point, it’s not even about respect. It’s about your legacy. What you did to get here, and what you can do to stay. What if you won the EGOT?

“EGOT” stands for, “Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, Tony.” And winning one of these is no small feat. There is no official EGOT award, it’s just a name, but it comes with four major awards. For each award, you need to have excelled at something in the entertainment industry, whether it be writing or directing a groundbreaking hit, or giving a groundbreaking performance. And like mentioned before, it is not something that is easy to do

It is such a hard thing to accomplish that only fifteen people in history have won an EGOT. Some of them you might know such as Rita Moreno, Audrey Hepburn, Mel Brooks, and Whoopi Goldberg. Others you probably haven’t heard of, but you should look them up anyway, like Richard Rodgers, composer of some of the best musicals of all time. Robert Lopez the writer and composer of The Book of Mormon, who is also the writer of the extremely popular kids song; Let it Go from Disney’s Frozen.

Recently, two Broadway stars won the EGOT: lyricist and producer Tim Rice along with composer and producer Andrew Lloyd Webber. Tim Rice is known for writing songs for hit Disney movies like Aladdin and The Lion King. Andrew Lloyd Webber is known for producing hit musicals like Cats and The Phantom of the Opera. Both Rice and Webber won the Emmy for Outstanding Variety Special for Jesus Christ Superstar Live in Concert, a musical that they both worked on. Which brings me to the next recent winner.

 John Legend, a household name who has written many hit songs and has also won an outstanding ten Grammys. And Jesus Christ Superstar gave him his Emmy, making his GOT an EGOT. He is one of the youngest people to ever win the EGOT and the first African-American to receive one.

While the EGOT is extremely hard to win, it is not that hard to pursue. All you have to do is work hard, get recognized, and maybe, if you’re lucky, you can win one. Hope for the best, and it will be yours.