Alex Newell, a “Glee” alum who is bringing down the house nightly with a barn-burning number in “Shucked,” won the Tony Award for best featured actor in a musical Sunday night, becoming the first out nonbinary actor to win a Tony for performance.
Newell, who identifies both as nonbinary and gender fluid, plays a fiercely self-reliant whiskey distiller in “Shucked,” which is a country-scored, pun-rich musical comedy about a small farming community whose corn crop begins mysteriously dying.
“To my entire building and cast and crew of ‘Shucked’ — you are my rock,” Newell said, accepting the award. “I love you all. Thank you for seeing me, Broadway. I should not be up here as a queer, nonbinary, fat, Black little baby from Massachusetts. And to anyone that thinks that they can’t do it, I’m going to look you dead in your face. That you can do anything you put your mind to.”
Newell agreed to be considered in the gendered actor category, telling The New York Times last month: “I look at the word ‘actor’ as one, my vocation, and two, genderless. We don’t say plumbess for plumber. We don’t say janitoress for janitor. We say plumber, we say janitor. That’s how I look at the word, and that’s how I chose my category.”
At least two performers who later came out as nonbinary have previously won Tony Awards as best featured actress in a musical: Sara Ramirez, who won in 2005 for “Spamalot,” and Karen Olivo (also known as K O), who won in 2009 for a revival of “West Side Story.” Also: Last year, the Tony Award for best score went to Toby Marlow and Lucy Moss for “Six,” and Marlow is nonbinary.
Newell, 30, is best known for playing the transgender teenager Unique Adams on “Glee,” and previously starred in a Broadway revival of “Once on This Island.” Newell uses all pronouns, according to a “Shucked” spokesman.
Also nominated in the featured actor in a musical category was one of Newell’s castmates, Kevin Cahoon, as well as Justin Cooley (“Kimberly Akimbo”), Kevin Del Aguila (“Some Like It Hot”) and Jordan Donica (“Camelot”).
Source: Theater - nytimes.com
