The 75th Annual Tony Awards marked the start of Broadway's first full season since the pandemic. Many of the shows nominated for awards were set to premiere in 2020, but theaters were forced to close for a year and a half.
In accepting the award for Best Play, one of the producers for The Lehman Trilogy resignedly stated, "between the fourth and fifth preview there were 577 days."
Despite this, the Tony Awards did not emphasize how difficult COVID was for the industry. It didn't beg visitors to come back. Instead, thanks in large part to its host, Ariana DeBose, the show was surprisingly warm and welcoming.
Here are six observations I made while watching the Tony Awards on Sunday night:
1. Allow Ariana DeBose to host the entire event.
DeBose, who won an Oscar for her role as Anita in Stephen Spielberg's West Side Story, gave a master class on how to host an awards show — or any show, for that matter. She strutted into the audience and sat on Andrew Garfield's lap, amusing and playful. She was emotional, breaking down in tears as she spoke about her mentor, a theater teacher. She was open and honest, gently commenting on the theater industry's racial disparities. ("I feel like the Great White Way is more of a nickname than a how-to guide," she said.)
She was also engaged, which was a big plus. She didn't treat the awards like a Hollywood Improv show; she wasn't competing with anyone else on stage for laughs or attention. Instead, it was as if she reached out and took the audience by the hand, inviting us into her living room to watch the show together. She simply appeared to be having a good time.
"Broadway's back, baby, and she's waiting for you!" she said near the end, and we believed her.
2. The Tony Awards are diverse! That is, unless they aren't.
For a while, it looked like this year's Tony Award winners would be almost entirely white. The show spent a lot of time emphasizing how welcoming theater is to everyone, and the nominees were diverse, but the winners... weren't.
As the Tony Awards progressed, it appeared that the new musical A Strange Loop, about a struggling Black gay man, would end the night with 11 nominations but no awards. What are the awards for best musical director, best score, best scenic design, and best lighting design? All of them went to other shows. The Tony Awards made a big deal about L Morgan Lee of A Strange Loop being the first openly transgender performer to be nominated for a Tony. When it came down to it, Patti LuPone's performance in Company won Best Performance by an Actress in a Featured Role in a Musical.
But then things changed. A Strange Loop won Best Book (almost a foregone conclusion given that it won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 2020) and — surprise! — Best Musical.
Phylicia Rashad for Skeleton Crew, Myles Frost for MJ, and Joaquina Kalukango for Paradise Square were among the other winners of color (who earned a standing ovation, the only one of the evening, for her thrilling award show performance).
The United Kingdom, however, was the night's biggest winner. All of the winners were British: Simon Russell Beale, Sam Mendes, Marianne Elliott, Toby Marlow, Lucy Moss, Bunny Christie, Es Devlin, Gabriella Slade, Jon Clark, and Ben Power.
3. Kudos to understudies (and standbys and swings and stage managers and ...)
The unheralded people who keep the show running, especially when the big names are out with COVID, were a recurring theme throughout the evening. Understudy Mallory Maedke, who performed in a number from the new musical SIX at the Tony Awards, had only a few hours notice before she had to go on, according to Ariana DeBose. In their acceptance speeches, other winners, such as Jesse Tyler Ferguson, thanked understudies, standbys, and swings. In addition, the stage manager of Paradise Square was introduced to the cameras. Also, 150 Broadway COVID safety managers were given tickets to the awards show, and they waved from the balcony to the television audience.
A quick note: it's common to assume that everyone who stands in for an actor is an understudy. Understudies, on the other hand, perform in the ensemble before moving on to lead roles if necessary; standbys are performers who stand by offstage in case a lead performer is unable to perform; and swings cover multiple ensemble roles.
4. Jennifer Hudson was awarded the EGOT.
Hudson had already won an Emmy, a Grammy, and an Oscar, and she added a Tony to her collection tonight. She is listed as a co-producer on A Strange Loop, which she joined after it was transferred to Broadway. She is the 17th performer to earn an EGOT, and the second Black woman to do so.
5. Dana H was finally given the credit she deserved.
Dana H was so little-known when it closed in November of last year that two presenters mispronounced it. (George Takei referred to it as Diana, and Josh Lucas referred to it as Donna H.) But it was an incredible, gut-wrenching performance. When playwright Lucas Hnath was in college, he compiled recordings of his mother telling the story of her kidnapping, and actor Deirdre O'Connell lip-synced to the tape. O'Connell spends almost the entire performance alone on stage.
Mikhail Fiksel of the play won for best Sound Design, which seemed like a "of course" moment given that the play was entirely based on sound.
However, O'Connell, who was up against Mary-Louise Parker and Ruth Negga, won the Tony Award unexpectedly. "If you need a sign from the universe that you should make weird art, here it is," she said in her speech.
6. Everyone is disappointed. Stephen Sondheim is a well-known American composer.
Because Company's music and lyrics were written by Stephen Sondheim, who died Nov. 26 last year, there was a sense that it might win Best Revival even before the Tony Awards. Yes, it did.
But Sondheim was also honored in a lovely tribute that featured Bernadette Peters singing "Children Will Listen" from his 1987 Broadway musical Into the Woods. Thanks to those clips of Sondheim talking about how the arts are about teaching, it was nostalgic but not saccharine. It, like the rest of the award show, reached out to the audience to draw them in.
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