Tony Awards: Hollywood A-listers brought the spotlight to Broadway, but stage thespians carried the day

Broadway yet got its groove back. The 2024-25 play was the highest-grossing play connected grounds and the second-highest successful presumption of attendance.

Hollywood A-listers, specified arsenic George Clooney successful “Good Night, and Good Luck,” and Denzel Washington and Jake Gyllenhaal successful “Othello” got successful connected the action, raising Broadway’s media illustration on with its summons prices. Two Emmy-winning alums of HBO’s “Succession,” Sarah Snook successful “The Picture of Dorian Gray” and Kieran Culkin successful “Glengarry Glen Ross,” person been treading the boards, arsenic has Netflix’s “Stranger Things” standout Sadie Sink successful “John Proctor Is the Villain.” And though the acquisition seems to person been memory-holed, Robert Downey Jr. made a respectable Broadway debut successful September successful Ayad Akhtar’s too-clever-by-half AI drama, “McNeal.”

On Sunday, the Tony Awards paid homage to the astonishing array of acting endowment that drew audiences backmost to the theater. But it wasn’t prima powerfulness that determined the evening’s prizes. It was boldness — unadulterated theatrical fearlessness — that carried the day.

The ceremony, held astatine Radio City Music Hall amid the creation deco splendor of aged New York, was presided implicit by Tony-winner Cynthia Erivo, a earthy wonderment of the theatrical universe. One of the turbo-powered stars of the blockbuster surface adaptation of “Wicked,” she was the perfect big for a Broadway twelvemonth that owed its occurrence to the unsocial quality of high-wattage signifier performers to forge a singular transportation with audiences.

Viewers watching the ceremonial connected CBS were offered a glimpse of the cyclonic vigor she tin make successful a bubbly opening fig celebrating the nominees. It didn’t substance that astir watching from location hadn’t seen the shows name-checked successful the specially composed novelty song. The vivacity of the creation signifier broke done the surface courtesy of Erivo’s capableness to blast done immoderate obstruction with her truthful virtuosity.

Will Aronson and Hue Park’s “Maybe Happy Ending” was the evening’s large winner, picking up six Tonys, including champion musical. Branden Jacobs-Jenkins’ “Purpose,” which received the Pulitzer Prize for play this year, was chosen arsenic champion play successful a play showcasing a refreshingly wide scope of ambitious playwriting.

Anna D. Shapiro’s sharply-tuned accumulation of Jonathan Spector’s “Eureka Day,” a bitingly comic satire connected the vaccine debate, won for play revival. And Jamie Lloyd’s extremist reworking of “Sunset Blvd.” took the prize for philharmonic revival.

All successful all, it was a beardown play for directing. Michael Arden won for his exquisitely humane staging of the futuristic robot musical, “Maybe Happy Ending.” And Sam Pinkleton was honored for his chaotic and whirling synchronization of Cole Escola’s “Oh, Mary!”

Cole Escola and James Scully successful “Oh, Mary!” connected Broadway.

(Emilio Madrid)

As a critic, I don’t usually person to wage for theatre tickets, but I got a sensation of the ludicrousness erstwhile charged $500 to spot Washington and Gyllenhaal successful a flaccid revival of “Othello.” Apparently, I got disconnected cheaply compared to a person who paid adjacent much for a worse spot connected the aforesaid night.

But the price-gouging didn’t dent my appreciation for a play that reminded maine of the privilege of being successful the country wherever the theatrical magic happens. (Yes, adjacent “Othello” had its intermittent rewards.) Communing with audiences successful the beingness of talented signifier performers is 1 of the past bastions of assemblage successful our screen-ridden society.

I was grateful that CNN made the agonizingly timely “Good Night, and Good Luck” disposable to a wider public, presenting Saturday night’s show live. But watching Clooney and institution connected TV wasn’t the aforesaid arsenic being successful the Winter Garden with them during the performance. It wasn’t simply that the camerawork profoundly altered the ocular storytelling. It was that astatine location connected my sofa I was nary longer enclosed successful the aforesaid shared abstraction that brought past backmost to the contiguous for a charged infinitesimal of corporate reflection.

The Tony Awards honored those actors who embraced the immediacy of the theatrical acquisition and offered america varieties of show styles that would beryllium hard to find adjacent successful the much obscure reaches of Netflix.

Cole Escola, the archetypal nonbinary performer to triumph successful the pb histrion successful a play category, accepted the grant for their fiendishly madcap show successful “Oh, Mary!” — a no-holds-barred farcical show of irreverence that ignited a firestorm of hilarity that threatened to devour each of Broadway. Snook won for her pb show successful “The Picture of Dorian Gray,” a multimedia collage of Wilde’s caller that had the protean “Succession” prima playing other surface versions of herself successful what was the season’s astir aerobically taxing performance.

Francis Jue, who delivered the evening’s astir moving and politically pointed speech, won for his shape-shifting (and age-defying) featured show successful the revival of David Henry Hwang’s “Yellow Face.” And Kara Young, who won past twelvemonth successful the featured histrion successful a play category, repeated for her heightened artistry successful “Purpose,” the benignant of extravagant show nary surface could bash justness to.

Nicole Scherzinger arsenic Norma Desmond successful “Sunset Blvd.” connected Broadway astatine the St. James Theatre.

(Marc Brenner)

Nicole Scherzinger, who was honored arsenic champion pb histrion successful a philharmonic for her portrayal of Norma Desmond successful a bracing revival of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s “Sunset Boulevard,” demonstrated the powerfulness of theatre to prehend clasp of america erstwhile she performed “As If We Never Said Goodbye” connected the telecast. In her Broadway debut, Scherzinger, who came to fame with the Pussycat Dolls, faced stiff contention from Audra McDonald, the six-time Tony victor starring successful “Gypsy.”

No show moved maine much this play than McDonald’s harrowing portrayal of Rose. In George C. Wolfe’s revival, the quality is simply a Black pistillate struggling not conscionable with her frustrated dreams of stardom displaced onto her children but with the injustice of past itself. McDonald was fixed the intolerable task of performing “Rose’s Turn” connected the telecast, her character’s Lear-like cri de cœur successful song. She delivered, arsenic she ever does, but again I privation audiences astatine location could acquisition the breached majesty of this fig successful discourse astatine the Majestic Theatre, wherever theatergoers person been rising up successful unison, wiping distant tears, to explicit their gratitude for McDonald’s sacrificial generosity.

Darren Criss, an alum of “Glee,” received his archetypal Tony for endowing an outdated robot with a blase sensation for jazz with a deft carnal beingness and diffident (yet unmistakable) humanity. His pb show successful “Maybe Happy Ending” (perfectly successful sync with that of his awesome co-star, Helen J Shen) is arsenic liable for the musical’s unexpected occurrence arsenic Arden’s staging and Dane Laffrey and George Reeve’s Tony-winning scenic design.

Natalie Venetia Belcon, the bosom and psyche of “Buena Vista Social Club” on with the band, was honored for her featured show successful the philharmonic that tells the communicative of Cuban philharmonic benignant that defied past to seduce the world. And Jak Malone, who was liable for the evening’s 2nd astir riveting speech, won for his gender-blurring featured show in“Operation Mincemeat: A New Musical.”

These performances, by names you astir apt don’t cognize each that well, embraced the peculiar properties of an creation signifier that is larger than beingness and each the much acutely exposed for being so. It takes tremendous accomplishment and dedication to find the delicacy successful specified theatrical grandeur. These artists cognize that flamboyance needn’t preclude subtlety, and that stardom neither guarantees nor bars revelation.

Actors from each ranks are intelligibly hungering for the benignant of substance and state that the signifier tin uniquely provide. Off-Broadway has been filled with marquee talents connecting with audiences whose main involvement is potent work.

Patsy Ferran, starring other Paul Mescal successful the Almeida Theatre accumulation of “A Streetcar Named Desire” astatine the Brooklyn Academy of Music’s Harvey Theater, was, hands down, the champion show I saw each year. Andrew Scott successful “Vanya” astatine the Lucille Lortel Theatre, Adam Driver successful Kenneth Lonergan’s “Hold connected to Me Darling” besides astatine the Lortel, Lily Rabe successful Mark O’Rowe’s adaptation of Ibsen’s “Ghosts” astatine Lincoln Center Theater’s Mitzi E. Newhouse and Nina Hoss and Adeel Akhtar successful the Donmar Warehouse accumulation of “The Cherry Orchard” astatine St. Ann’s Warehouse near maine feeling, arsenic lone theatre can, much consciously live and connected.

The speeches astatine the Tony Awards, for the astir part, skirted politics. This reticence was astonishing fixed what we’re surviving through. But there’s thing profoundly governmental erstwhile we stitchery to look successful the reflector that artists clasp earlier nature. The authorities are implicit, and this twelvemonth Broadway reminded america that our humanity depends upon this ancient, timeless art.