2016 Tony Awards

Sorry, Buster Monday – last night was Tony night, so you’ll have to wait until tomorrow.

Obviously, there was a shadow cast over what everyone had thought would be Broadway’s annual televised celebration.  Host James Corden opened with brief, heartfelt remarks for those touched by the tragedy in Orlando, most presenters, winners, and audience members wore gray ribbons in solidarity, and a number of people took time out of their acceptance speeches to address the shooting.  But while the night was more somber than expected, I’m glad that the telecast wasn’t radically changed – “the show went on,” as they say, and the talent that was recognized onstage was still applauded and celebrated.  Terror wants to change us, break us.  Sometimes, the only way we know how to stand up to it is to carry on and still find joy in life, even when our hearts are heavy.

And so, we did have Broadway’s big night.  Corden, for my money, did an excellent job hosting.  The cast of Hamilton started the show with a Corden-related parody of their opening number – culminating in Corden warning them, “Just you wait!” when they started eyeing the Tony he was holding – and then the former History Boy/Craig from Doctor Who/the Baker from the Into the Woods movie gave quite the terrific opening-number performance himself.  The sprawling number amusingly riffed on numerous musicals and chased one famous lyric to another (ie, “People who need people are the / Luck be a lady / Tonight, tonight…”)  He also had some fun bits throughout the evening, my favorite being the nostalgia tour through a number of Broadway folks’ Law and Order history, and generally kept things moving with his affable enthusiasm.

No surprise, this was the Hamil-tonys, and Hamilton won big, taking home every award it was up for except best set design and best lead actress – 11 in all, one shy of The Producers’ record.  On the acting front, Leslie Odom Jr. beat out Lin-Manuel Miranda for lead actor (but, since Miranda won best score and best book that night, I’m guessing he’s okay with it,) Reneé Elise Goldsberry crushed it for featured actress, and out of three Hamilton nominees in the featured actor category, I was thrilled to see Daveed Diggs take the statue.  Among all the other awards it won were, like I said, two for Miranda, and in his speech for best score, he read a gorgeous sonnet he’d written as a tribute to the victims of the Orlando shooting.  They performed twice more after the show opener.  Their main performance was an electric rendition of “Yorktown (The World Turned Upside Down)”, and having taking home best musical, the ladies closed the show with “The Schuyler Sisters.”

I feel kind of bad for the other show that had the unfortunate luck to come out the same year as Hamilton, because this was a strong year.  All the performances from nominated shows ranged from good to fantastic, and after seeing the telecast, I’ve definitely added to my “cast recordings to buy” list (more on my favorites later this week.)  The Color Purple and its leading lady Cynthia Erivo won best revival and best lead actress, and in any other year, most of these shows probably would have done well for themselves, award-wise. 

Oh yeah – of the 20 acting nominees for musicals, 10 were people of color, plus 4 of the 20 nominees for plays.  Not only that, PoC won all four of the musical acting categories.  The Great White Way isn’t doing too shabby!