NEW YORK???
Broadway’s biggest night
returned with starry tributes, teary speeches and plenty of love to go around.
After a scaled-down show last year due to COVID-19, the
Tony Awards
came home to Radio City Music Hall Sunday with a joyous ceremony hosted by theater veteran-turned-Oscar winner
Ariana DeBose
(“West Side Story”).
Stephen Sondheim’s
gender-swapped “Company” and Stefano Massini’s financial epic “The Lehman Trilogy” led the prizes with five Tonys apiece. Meanwhile, Michael R. Jackson’s Pulitzer Prize-winning “A Strange Loop,” about a young Black gay playwright, picked up awards for best musical and best book.
Bernadette Peters brought viewers to tears with her moving performance honoring late composer Sondheim, singing his song “Children Will Listen” from “Into the Woods.” And the original Broadway cast of
“Spring Awakening,”
which includes
Lea Michele
and Jonathan Groff, nearly stole the show with their stirring rendition of “Touch Me” from the provocative hit musical.
Here are more highlights from the night:
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2022 Tony Awards full list of winners:
'A Strange Loop,' 'The Lehman Trilogy' take Broadway's top honors
Ariana DeBose on hosting the Tony Awards,
why she won't use her Oscar as a toilet paper holder
Billy Crystal charms singing Yiddish with Samuel L. Jackson
A number of musicals delivered standout performances that are guaranteed to sell tickets: Joaquina Kalukango, a newly crowned Tony winner for best actress in a musical, blew the roof off Radio City with her ferociously emotional "Let It Burn" from "Paradise Square," which got an immediate?standing ovation from the audience. "MJ" and "Girl from the North Country" also wowed with reworked takes on popular Michael Jackson and Bob Dylan songs, respectively.?
Crystal, too, made the most of his time onstage performing "A Little Joy" from his musical "Mr. Saturday Night," in which he plays a washed-up standup comedian named Buddy Young Jr. At one point, Crystal called on the audience to jokingly scat-sing in Yiddish with him: walking over to Jackson and Lin-Manuel Miranda, both of whom gamely sang and laughed along.?
"If you liked me, I'm Buddy Young Jr." Crystal said at the end of the performance. "If you're not so sure, I'm Hugh Jackman!"?
Laurence Fishburne stuns with random Daffy Duck impression?
In between awards, DeBose wandered into the audience for some genuinely amusing banter with presenters and nominees: singing on?
Andrew Garfield's lap
while he hugged her, and doing the "Rich Man's Frug" dance from?the 1969 musical "Sweet Charity" with Sam Rockwell.?
But most memorable of all was when she walked over to Fishburne, who stars in "American Buffalo" on Broadway and was seated with his?teenage daughter, Delilah.?
"Laurence Fishburne, he does an incredible Daffy Duck," DeBose said, putting a microphone up to the actor's?face.?
"Well, thank you and welcome to the Tony Awards," Fishburne replied, doing a pitch-perfect voice of the Looney Tunes character as his horrified?daughter looked on. "And thank you for your contribution to the American theater."?
'We just want to be seen':
'Black-ish' creator Kenya Barris, Anthony Anderson reflect on show's legacy
His daughter's hilarious reaction was an instant hit on social media. "Special award to Laurence Fishburne's embarrassed daughter," Twitter user
@PaulArtSmith
joked. "I need someone to do a post-show interview with (her),"
@jessemermell
added.?
Myles Frost tearfully honors his mom and the late Michael Jackson
Frost moon-walked away with the Tony for best leading actor in a musical, besting famous fellow nominees
Hugh Jackman (“The Music Man”)
and
Billy Crystal (“Mr. Saturday Night”)
for his spot-on portrayal of pop icon Michael Jackson.
“Ma, I made it,” said the 22-year-old newcomer, who danced?up to the stage and broke out singing Jackson 5’s “Blame It On the Boogie” midway through his speech. “I really gotta pee right now, so I’ll keep it quick:?Mom, I love you so, so much. Without you, there would be no me. You taught and showed me what a strong Black woman is and what it means to raise a strong Black man. I just pray I made you proud.”?
He closed his speech with a tribute to Jackson himself, saying, “I love you all and as Michael would say: With love, heal the world.”
Digging deeper:
We may never resolve our conflicted feelings about Michael Jackson
Talking to journalists backstage, Frost reflected on Jackson’s impact on pop culture, saying, “Black music culture is music culture, period. Michael has been one of the pioneers for that, if not the biggest pioneer.”?He was also asked what he’d?say to Jackson if he had the chance.
“I would ask him, ‘How’d I do? And what can I do better?’ “ Frost said. “I’m very hard on myself ? that’s just how my mentality is.”
Jesse Tyler Ferguson addresses co-star's nude leak backstage?
The "Modern Family" favorite earned his first Tony for best featured actor in a play for "Take Me Out," which also won best play revival. Ferguson, who plays the gay business manager of a newly out baseball player in the show, recalled his early days working in a theater gift shop in Times Square while accepting the award.?
"I would sit in there and I would be?folding my 'Phantom of the Opera' T-shirts,?watching actors walk by the windows,?and I thought, 'Oh God, I hope that's me someday,' " Ferguson said in his speech, before thanking his parents and husband, actor/producer Justin Mikita.?
Backstage, Ferguson was asked whether he worries about having his privacy invaded by theatergoers in the future, after his co-star
Jesse Williams ("Grey's Anatomy")
was illegally filmed by an audience member during a nude scene. The footage was later leaked online last month.
" 'Take Me Out' is a very unique play with shower scenes and celebrities. I don't think those match up too often on stage,"?Ferguson told journalists. "Maybe we'll see a surge now of those plays, who knows? But no. … I think that was an isolated event, and I love and trust all of my theatergoing fans just as much as I did before this."?
Jesse Tyler Ferguson
says he's 'appalled' by leak of Jesse Williams nude in 'Take Me Out'
'Consent is important':
Jesse Williams addresses leak of Broadway nude scene
Jennifer Hudson reaches EGOT status for "A Strange Loop"
Hudson secured
EGOT status
at last night's Tony Awards after "A Strange Loop" scored best musical. She is one of the show's co-producers.?
The multihyphenate won a Daytime Emmy in 2021 for animated short "Baba Yaga," her first Grammy in 2009 for her self-titled album, a second Grammy in 2017 for best musical theater album for "The Color Purple" and an Oscar in 2007 for her role in "Dreamgirls." Hudson is the second Black woman to join the EGOT club, after Whoopi Goldberg became the first Black EGOT winner in 2002.?
Hudson joked in 2020 that if she reached EGOT prestige, she "
should get two more dogs
." The "American Idol" alum further explained that she named two of her dogs Oscar and Grammy before she secured those awards, calling her furry friends "good luck charms."
Patti LuPone revives viral meme while accepting third Tony
The Broadway legend picked up her third Tony Sunday for best featured actress in a musical for "Company," following past wins for playing Eva Peron in?"Evita" and Mama Rose in "Gypsy." In "Company," she portrays the vodka-slinging Joanne, who belts out the Sondheim musical's signature song "The Ladies Who Lunch."?
In her speech, a visibly emotional LuPone, 73, paid tribute to "all of the understudies across all of the stage in New York,"?as well as "all of the COVID safety people." She also made a playful nod to a viral video last month, in which she berated a "Company"?audience member for not wearing a mask, who then claimed to pay the actress'?salary. ("Chris Harper pays my salary!" LuPone retorted, name-dropping one of the show's producers.)?
"Chris Harper, who pays my salary, you are my one and last producer," LuPone said as she closed out her Tonys speech.
'Who do you think you are?':
Patti LuPone claps back at Broadway theatergoer for not wearing mask
"I'll just say, you don't see that coming, do you?" Harper said of the viral phenomenon, with theater fans printing his name on T-shirts in weeks since. "The great thing about Patti is that you never know what's gonna happen. I love her so?deeply. She's hilarious."
2022 Tony Awards:
Broadway's biggest night in photos