The 78th Annual Tony Awards returned to Radio City Music Hall this year, with Cynthia Erivo hosting. Some years, one musical is crowned the absolute best of the season, sweeping almost all of the awards (think Hamilton). That didn't happen this time around, for good reason — Broadway had a banner year, with a tremendous diversity of shows. There were a lot of tight races (and a lot of gasps of surprise in the media room across the street, where I was stationed).
The favorite, Maybe Happy Ending, an original musical about two lonely robots who find each other, won the most awards: six, including Best Musical.
Purpose, which won the Pulitzer this year, was named Best Play (one of the surprises — many theater-watchers predicted it would go to the buzzy queer farce Oh, Mary). But the show won only one other award, Best Featured Actress (Kara Young).
The rest of the awards, however, were really spread across shows. Buena Vista Social Club won four competitive awards, plus a special award for their musicians, while Sunset Boulevard won three, including Best Revival and Lead Actress in a Musical. Stranger Things: The First Shadow also won three competitive awards, all technical ones, plus a special award for Illusions & Technical Effects.
But this year, it felt appropriate that there was no sweep. It was a season of very diverse shows, and it deserved diverse winners.
Here are my top takeaways from a joyous Tony Awards.
1. Cynthia Erivo is funny. The producers used the comic timing of this year's host (and her miracle of a voice) to good effect. In one bit, she asked her friend Oprah Winfrey to look under her seat...where she found a toy red car. "You get a car!" Erivo crowed, to audience laughter. The show ended with her picking up a mic and singing, "And I Am Telling You I Am Not Going" from Dreamgirls.
2. Celebrities aren't everything, but they sure help with marketing. At the beginning of the season, there was a lot of talk about how New York's stages were flooded with celebrities, from Kit Connor to Denzel Washington to George Clooney to...well, it seemed like the whole cast of Succession.
Celebrities brought high, headline-making ticket prices, but they also brought a kind of excitement that you could feel in the streets before and after shows. They helped make Broadway feel culturally relevant again, with appearances on late night shows and podcasts. And many of them were presenters, which made the show feel a bit like the Oscars (Keanu Reeves, Samuel L. Jackson, Bryan Cranston and Ben Stiller among them).
But what they didn't do was dominate the awards. There are eight acting awards and only three were won by celebs: Nicole Scherzinger won for Best Leading Actress in a Revival for Sunset Blvd., beating out Audra McDonald, Darren Criss won Best Leading Actor in a Musical for Maybe Happy Ending, and Sarah Snook for Best Leading Actress in a Play for The Picture of Dorian Gray.
3. Hamilton can still elicit a standing ovation. It's been 10 years since Hamilton debuted on Broadway, and to celebrate, the original cast did a "mixtape" performance. There were no corsets in sight; instead, they wore all black and highlighted some of the musical's greatest hits, ending with Christopher Jackson singing "History Has Its Eyes On You."
4. Diversity was rewarded. Not just in the DEI sense (though there were plenty of awards that went to racially-diverse actors and productions, like Buena Vista Social Club, set in an ethnically specific milieu), but also in the types of productions showcased this season. There was something for everyone: Stranger Things is based on the sci-fi horror hit series from Netflix; Operation Mincemeat is a scrappy musical about World War II that originated in England; Dead Outlaw used country rock to tell a story about a corpse.
Over and over, people on the red carpet told me this was a season that held a show for all types of people, and that they hope producers see that new, risky productions are viable moneymakers – and belong on Broadway.
5. Gavin Creel is deeply missed. The Tony-winning actor died in September at age 48 of a rare cancer. Erivo and Sara Bareilles sang a slow, lovely version of "Tomorrow" from Annie during the In Memoriam segment honoring those on the boards and behind the scenes who died this season. The last photo was of Creel and after, Erivo and Bareilles shared a long hug.
The American Theatre Wing is partnering with a group of Creel's friends to build a $3 million endowment to support young theater makers in his honor.
Edited by Ciera Crawford
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