The Tony Awards

In The Heights and August: Osage County were the big winners tonight at the Tony Awards. And although that wasn't a surprise, they deserved their wins. Breakdown, results, and some of the best moments after the jump.


In The Heights won four, the most for musicals. Best Musical, Score, Orchestrations, and Choreography. Go see this show. It's fabulous. And it won the awards it should have. Lin-Manuel Miranda is a Broadway phenom and was adorably happy. This show is traditional in its values and yet feels completely new. The dancing, the hip hop, the spanish music all blend in the Broadway sound.

Also deserving - Passing Strange for Best Book (Author). Stew, the writer and star of the show was exactly how he is on stage - irreverent and amused by the whole thing. This was the perfect award for them, the music is original and amazing. Another show you should come to New York to see immediately. Brilliant. It's impossible to know how good this show is from the performance, but trust me.

August: Osage County did exactly what it should have done, winning Best Play, Scenic Design, Featured Actress (Rondi Reed), Actress (Deanna Dunagan), and Director.

South Pacific won for Best Musical Revival, and Boeing-Boeing for best play revival (it's British farce, and two hours of fast paced hysteria. Awesome)

Best Actress in a Musical: Patti LuPone. Duh.

Whoopi was good as the host, genuinely delighted to remind the audience that she has a Tony Award (many of the presenters also reminded the audience... I think they wanted to make sure the audience knew they weren't just slumming from Hollywood) Whoopi also dressed up as various plays, which really only worked in her entrance half way through as Mary Poppins. For some reason, the flying harness is always a laugh. What didn't work was the Christian Sirano dress, which she had to clutch when she apparently didn't have enough time to change. I give her a B+. Nowhere near as good as Hugh Jackman, but certainly better than the "no host" fiasco they've had for the last two years.

Touching moments:

Laura Benanti, winning Featured Actress in a Musical for Gypsy was trying to keep it together, and was adorably a mess thanking Authur Laurents for standing up to applaud her (he's 90).

Deanna Dunagan saying saying how happy she was to be accepted by Broadway, having done thirty four years of regional theater in Chicago before coming to New York with August: Osage County. She mentioned that until tonight, she had only ever watched the show on television.

Lin-Manuel Miranda, picking up the Tony for Best Score, rapped his speech, which came out a lot better than it sounds on paper. In the rap, he gave a shout out to Sondeim (one of his idols) when he referenced the "making a hat where there never was a hat and it's a Latin hat at that." He also waved his Puerto Rican flag, which he had in his pocket.

Anna D. Shapiro winning for best Director of Play was visibly moved, and thanked her parents for not belittling her choice of career... and her nieces and nephews for not being impressed beyond her ability to get them into Little Mermaid.

Patti LuPone being the diva she deserved to be, accepting her Best Actress by announcing that she only gets the Tony every 30 years (28 to be exact) and shouting her speech, including yelling at the conductor for starting the music. Seriously, she Patti fucking LuPone - respect!

Funny moments:

Tracy Letts, the author of August: Osage County mentioning the pain of once having to audition for 'JAG'. He also made a great comment about how wonderful it was for a play to be recognized that was comprised of theater actors (as opposed to Hollywood stars).

Mary Louise Parker referring to Macbeth as "A Scottish Play" when announcing the nominees for Best Actor.

Mark Rylance, confusing the hell out of the entire country outside of New York when he accepted his Best Actor in a Play by giving a speech in character from Boeing-Boeing. Co-stars Christine Baranski and Mary McCormick was particularly amused.

Richard Griffiths and Daniel Radcliffe presenting an award had the biggest laugh of the night when Richard couldn't get the sticker off of the envelope and Daniel quickly grabbed it for him. Richard dryly noted "Like magic" and a beat later the audience got it.

All in all, a very good year for Broadway. I was annoyed they cut awards to make room for performances that had no business being there (Little Mermaid? Really?) but clearly the producers wanted to sell a product to the rest of the country. If it gets more people in the theater, I'm all for it. But frankly, if you love musicals, and you haven't seen Passing Strange and In The Heights, then someone should come to your house and burn your copies of Les Mis and Rent.