The 79th annual Tony Awards are a wrap after an evening that offered a diverse, joyful representation of the Broadway community and the people who love it—including first-time host P!NK and other pop stars, ranging from rapper Megan Thee Stallion, who recently appeared in Moulin Rouge! The Musical, to Sting, now bringing his Tony-nominated musical The Last Ship to the Metropolitan Opera.
P!NK had promised, in an interview for The Broadway Show, an opening number featuring 170 people in a “full-blown, ridiculous celebration,” and the pop star not only delivered but helped sustain that spirit throughout the live broadcast from Radio City Music Hall, which brought generations of artists together for performances from the nominated shows and various musical homages.
Big winners included Joe Mantello’s acclaimed revival of Death of a Salesman, which collected six prizes, including Best Revival of a Play, and The Lost Boys, Ragtime, and Schmigadoon!, with four trophies each, including Best Revival of a Musical and Best Musical for the latter two. Bess Wohl’s Pulitzer Prize–winning Liberation was awarded Best Play.
You can check out all the winners here and read about some of the highlights below.
Opening With a Bang
P!NK made her entrance suspended from a wire, dressed like Peter Pan. After getting a few tips from four-time host Neil Patrick Harris—Ariana DeBose, who has done the honors three times, later showed up with more pointers—the Broadway newbie led a parade of nominees and other stars in a version of “Lady Marmalade,” the R&B classic she covered with other stars 25 years ago, with lyrics rewritten to accommodate the title “Leading Lady Marmalade.” At one point, 96-year-old June Squibb—the eldest acting nominee ever, for her featured performance in Marjorie Prime—joined the fun, tossing out a few lyrics from her seat in the audience.
Anniversary Parties
Hard to believe, but the first Broadway revival of Kander and Ebb’s Chicago turned 30 this year, and its birthday was commemorated in grand, cheeky style by a bevy of artists, many but not all of whom had appeared in the production at some point. Queen Latifah, who played Matron Mama Morton in the 2002 film adaptation, introduced the number, and Jesse Tyler Ferguson, Adrienne Warren, and Dylan Mulvaney were among those who took part in a wink to “Cell Block Tango.”
Later, The Book of Mormon creators Trey Parker, Matt Stone, and Robert Lopez unveiled a salute to that longtime hit, now in its 15th year, that featured original cast members Nikki M. James (a Tony winner for the show), Andrew Rannells, Josh Gad, and Rory O’Malley, romping once again through “Man Up.”
More Tender Tributes
To observe the 30th anniversary of RENT—whose creator, Jonathan Larson, died at only 35 on the day of the show’s first Off-Broadway preview—Leslie Odom Jr. delivered an impassioned reading of the ballad “Without You” with gentle, guitar-driven accompaniment. Rachel Zegler, who’s due to bring her Olivier Award–winning performance in the title role of Evita to Broadway next spring, later sang “What I Did for Love” from A Chorus Line, which won a whopping nine Tonys 50 years ago.
Moms’ Night Out
Motherhood was a prevailing theme of the ceremony from the start, when P!NK proudly acknowledged being mom to a theatre kid, whom she would bring up repeatedly. Bess Wohl thanked her own daughters, as well as her mom, while Shoshana Bean, accepting the award for featured actress in a musical for playing a single mom in The Lost Boys, declared, “This is for the mamas. This is for the single mamas. This is for my single mama.”
Caissie Levy, named best leading actress for playing Mother in Ragtime, noted that being a mom offstage had been “the greatest joy of my life,” and addressed her two children personally: “Although I’m not there to tuck you in each night, you have to know that a part of my heart stays home with you.”
Humble in Victory
Accepting her award for leading actress in a play for playing Jocasta in Oedipus, Robert Icke’s modern adaptation of Sophocles’ tragedy, Lesley Manville, the hugely accomplished British stage and screen actress, noted, “It was my first time on Broadway so this is such a big deal.” She also praised all of her fellow nominees by name and posed a suggestion: “Would someone like to write a play for five women? We are quite bankable.”
Joe Mantello, named best director of a play for his revival of Death of a Salesman, saluted his leading man, Nathan Lane, who had lost to John Lithgow in the leading actor category. Lithgow, awarded for the third time for his powerhouse portrait of a deeply flawed Roald Dahl in Giant, mused, “I’m a lucky man,” noting it had been more than five decades since his first win: “I have worked with hundreds of fantastic theatre artists. I’ve had dozens and dozens of ecstatic theatre moments onstage. But I’ve got to tell you, this moment has got to be one of the best.”
Floating Bawdy Humor
Opening the number representing Best Musical nominee Titanique, cocreator Marla Mindelle, also nominated for starring in the show, joined cast members in reproducing some of its ribald repartee: responding to the line “Everybody loves Seaman,” a reference to another character in the sendup of the blockbuster 1997 movie Titanic, the actress, as Celine Dion—the musical’s narrator—deadpanned, “Not lesbians.”
Bowen Yang, one of the show’s producers and a presenter, offered more irreverent (if less racy) joking, observing that Cameon had “spent years researching the doomed ship, going to painstaking lengths to accurately portray what went down. Ooh, poor choice of words. The creators of Titaníque, however, did not do any research. Instead, they asked, ‘What if Celine Dion was actually on the Titanic?’ And from there, used the music of our Québécois queen to let that incredible story sink in. Wow, horrible words again!”
Tag-Teaming It
When Zhailon Levingston and Bill Rauch won one of the evening’s tightest races, for best direction of a musical—for CATS: The Jellicle Ball, an exuberant and poignant reimagination of the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical—the pair traded off shouts of gratitude to everyone from family members to, as Levingston put it, “the Black and brown trans women and gay men who were ballroom’s pioneers, as well as today’s icons, and our cast of astonishing triple threats.”
After Rauch had added, “To the 12-year-old kid who doesn’t fit in… come find your home at the Jellicle Ball,” Levingston closed with, “And that, my friends, is what you call tag-team performance!”
Paying Respect
Joshua Henry, winner of best leading actor in a musical for Ragtime, nodded to original cast members and the character he inherited from one of them: “Audra McDonald and Brian Stokes Mitchell—thank you for your Black-don’t-crack legacy of artistic brilliance, showing us that we can shine in the fullness of who we are. It is an honor to play this role, Coalhouse Walker Jr., a Black musician whose art led him to his love and to his dream. And even in the face of pain and tragedy, he found a way to be heard. Every artist in this room, every artist at home, fight, fight, fight to be heard.”
Recognizing Another New York Institution
Who says that theatre and sports fans are mutually exclusive groups? Certainly not John Leguizamo, who ended his hilarious stint as a presenter by shouting, “Go, Knicks!”—to the enthusiastic approval of most, if not everyone, present.
