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    Meet The Sisters Who Turned “Merrily We Roll Along” Into a Tony Winner

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    Maria and Sonia Friedman discussed their long history with “Merrily We Roll Along,” after a bittersweet Tony Awards.The Friedman sisters have been making art together since they were little girls. Their London childhood was chaotic — they were often left to their own devices — but the family’s four children found solace in storytelling.Now Sonia, 59, is one of the most successful theater producers in the English-speaking world. Maria, 64, is a celebrated actress and singer. Their sister is a scientist, and their brother, who died last year, was a violinist.Sonia and Maria have occasionally worked together over the years, but rarely with as much emotional investment as on the current Broadway revival of “Merrily We Roll Along,” which Maria is directing and Sonia is producing. The revival has been transformative for the show, which, despite much-loved songs by Stephen Sondheim, was a famous flop when it first ran in 1981, and is now one of the hottest tickets in town.On Sunday night the Friedman sisters’ production won a Tony Award for best musical revival, as well as acting prizes for two of its stars, Daniel Radcliffe and Jonathan Groff, and another for its orchestrations. It did not, however, win for Maria’s direction, which made their evening bittersweet.“My heart went into 2,000 pieces,” said Sonia Friedman, who has a shelf full of Tony Awards, but just wanted recognition for her sister. She said she had to step out of the theater to collect herself. “The little sister in me was in agony for an older sister who’s only ever held me and supported me.”“Winning the Tony was fantastic, for Steve and for the legacy,” Maria Friedman said, but added that losing out on the best director award “was painful.”Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Huey Lewis Musical to Close on Broadway as New Shows Struggle

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      “The Heart of Rock and Roll” is the first new Broadway musical to announce a closing plan following Sunday’s Tony Awards.“The Heart of Rock and Roll,” a new jukebox musical powered by the songs of Huey Lewis and the News, will close on Broadway on Sunday.The show is the second to announce plans to close in the wake of this year’s Tony nominations, joining “Lempicka” on the list of productions that could not find an audience during this jam-packed spring. “The Heart of Rock and Roll” opened on April 22 to better-than-expected reviews, but picked up zero Tony nominations. The show will have played 24 previews and 72 performances.During a very crowded period on Broadway, the show was unable to break through: It grossed $272,051 in the week ending June 9, which is not nearly enough to cover the running costs of a full-size Broadway musical.“The Heart of Rock and Roll” is a freewheeling romantic comedy about a young man (played by Corey Cott) working at a Milwaukee cardboard factory but feeling the tug of his old band and developing a crush on the boss’s daughter (McKenzie Kurtz). The show, directed by Gordon Greenberg, features a witty book by Jonathan A. Abrams and even wittier choreography by Lorin Latarro; there was a pre-Broadway production at the Old Globe in San Diego in 2018.The musical, playing at the James Earl Jones Theater, features multiple Huey Lewis and the News hits, including “The Power of Love” and “Do You Believe in Love” as well as the title song. Huey Lewis, now 73, remains a nostalgic favorite for fans of 1980s culture, and he threw himself into promoting the show.The lead producers are Hunter Arnold, Tyler Mitchell and Kayla Greenspan; it was capitalized for up to $19 million, according to a filing with the Securities Exchange Commission, and that money has not been recouped.The closing comes at a challenging time for Broadway, where production costs have risen and attendance has fallen since the coronavirus pandemic. There are now 32 shows running on Broadway, and many of them are losing money each week. More

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      First-Time Tony Winners on Their Awards: Daniel Radcliffe, Kecia Lewis and More

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      All of the actors who took home Tonys were first-time winners. Here’s what they had to say after their wins.All of the performers who received Tony Awards last night have one thing in common: they were all first-time honorees. After accepting their prizes, the winners trekked across the Lincoln Center plaza to a press room where they answered questions from The New York Times and reporters from other news outlets. Here’s a sampling of what they said.Daniel Radcliffe, “Merrily We Roll Along”Radcliffe won best featured actor in a musical for his performance as the lyricist Charley Kringas in a revival of Sondheim’s “Merrily We Roll Along.” It’s Radcliffe’s fifth Broadway show, but the first for which he was nominated for a Tony.What has the “Merrily” journey been like for you?It’s been a dream, especially with it ending like this. My singing teacher, who I mentioned, one of the first things he ever had me sing to him was “Good Thing Going” whenever I worked with him for “Equus.” Going from singing that for the first time in his office in London to singing it onstage and now this, it’s insane.What’s it like to find new success after spending so much of your career in your childhood on “Harry Potter?”When I finished “Potter,” I had no idea what my career was going to be. I had already started doing some stage stuff, but I didn’t know what the future held. To have had the last year with playing Weird Al [in the 2022 movie “Weird: The Al Yankovic Story”] and also doing “Merrily We Roll Along,” it’s been awesome. And I do think playing a character for a long time builds up in you a desire to sort of do as many things as you possibly can. I’m doing that right now.Talk a little bit about the process of learning “Franklin Shepard, Inc.?” It’s a huge moment in the show and a huge patter song.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Daniel Radcliffe, Pete Townshend and Sarah Paulson Party for the Tonys

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      The actress Kara Young stood surrounded by admirers inside David Geffen Hall at Lincoln Center around 1 a.m. on Monday morning, fielding a swarm of well-wishers after winning her first Tony Award, for featured actress in the comedy “Purlie Victorious.” Her older brother hovered close by and periodically fanned out the train of her lime chiffon dress.Branden Jacobs-Jenkins, the 39-year-old playwright who penned the night’s best play revival, the searing family drama “Appropriate” — and a fellow first-time Tony winner — was next in line to compliment Ms. Young and her gown from the designer Bibhu Mohapatra.“This is a forever iconic Tonys look,” Mr. Jacobs-Jenkins told the actress. “When we’re like 70 years old, they’re going to show you in this.”The performers Kecia Lewis and Camille A. Brown.Nina Westervelt for The New York TimesThe actresses Sarah Paulson and Elle Fanning.Nina Westervelt for The New York TimesBranden Jacobs-Jenkins, the playwright.Nina Westervelt for The New York TimesThe performers Shaina Taub and Matt Gehring.Nina Westervelt for The New York TimesIt was a flash forward on a night when, for many of the Tony Award winners, anything seemed possible. All eight of the acting honorees, across plays and musicals, earned their first-ever Tony wins on Sunday — some for their first major Broadway role or their first nomination, others after four decades in the theater.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Jay-Z’s Big Tonys Duet With Alicia Keys Was Pretaped

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      The two stars brought down the house with “Empire State of Mind,” their 2009 love song to New York City, which they had recorded earlier on a grand marble staircase outside the auditorium.It drew one of the biggest roars of the night at the Tony Awards: Alicia Keys was performing a medley from her Broadway musical “Hell’s Kitchen” on Sunday when she walked out of the auditorium and was shown joining Jay-Z on a marble staircase for “Empire State of Mind,” their 2009 love song to New York City.“Had to do something crazy — it’s my hometown!” Keys said as the cameras followed her walking out of the auditorium at the David H. Koch Theater in Lincoln Center. A video screen onstage cut to Jay-Z, the Brooklyn-born rapper and mogul, as he performed from the curved marble staircase just outside the auditorium. Keys was seen joining him.There was a reason Jay-Z never appeared on the Tonys stage except in video form, though. In a savvy trick of the production, the reunion between two of music’s biggest stars was pretaped and carefully edited to seamlessly make it appear part of the live performance on Sunday night’s Tonys telecast, according to two people with knowledge of the telecast preparations who were not authorized to speak publicly about them. (New York Magazine reported earlier that the segment had been pretaped.)Live or taped, the duet became one of the biggest moments of the night. The Broadway crowd went wild as Jay-Z closed with, “Brooklyn, New York City in the Tonys tonight!”Some in the audience — who were gathered to celebrate an art form where eight live performances each week is the norm — seemed to think that the performance was unfolding live just outside the auditorium.But those outside the auditorium quickly realized what was going on. CJay Philip, who won an excellence in theater education award at the ceremony, was watching the performance on a screen in the lobby, not far from the marble staircase where Keys and Jay-Z were being shown performing in front of a sculpture by Yasuhide Kobashi.“Maybe for a second I was like, ‘Oh, Jay-Z is here?,’” she said, before realizing it had been a theatrical sleight of hand. When she got back to her seat, her mother exclaimed, “That was amazing!”“I was like, ‘Well, I’m glad mom enjoyed it,’” Philip said.Another member of the audience, Wendall K. Harrington, a Broadway projection designer who received a special Tony for her work, said that while some people around her seemed confused about whether the performance was live, she wasn’t.“I was not fooled,” she explained. “I’m in the projection business.” More

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      Best and Worst Moments From the 2024 Tony Awards

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      Alicia Keys and Jay-Z’s high-wattage performance was a highlight, as were first-time wins for Kecia Lewis, Jonathan Groff and David Adjmi.Ariana DeBose ended her third turn as Tonys host with a mic drop. Otherwise, last night’s ceremony offered a first time for everything and very nearly everyone. All eight winners in the acting categories took home their first trophies. (How is it possible that this is Jonathan Groff’s inaugural win?) The playwright David Adjmi, in his Broadway debut, won for “Stereophonic,” as did its director Daniel Aukin, also a Tony-winning newbie. Danya Taymor took home the prize for best direction of a musical for “The Outsiders,” her initial win. (“The Outsiders” also won for best musical.) In a mellow, equitable night, the other awards were spread among many of the nominated shows, with “Stereophonic,” “The Outsiders,” “Appropriate” and an ingeniously reimagined “Merrily We Roll Again” carrying home the top prizes. Here are the highs and lows — and wait, is that Jay-Z on the stairs? — of the ceremony.Now that’s putting on a show“The Outsiders” won best new musical. As the New York Times’s chief theater critic, Jesse Green, put it, Tony voters went with “the underdog show about perennial underdogs.”Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesThe producers and director were the same, but so much about this year’s telecast was a vast improvement on that of previous years. The pacing was swifter: The main broadcast ended on time and the pre-broadcast ended early. The dialogue was more dignified: no brainless chatter or mawkish introductions. The transitions were smoother: Sets were changed live on camera, saving time and showing us how theater actually works. And the investors who used to throng the stage when their shows won awards — not a good look, plus a traffic problem — were sequestered in some alternative universe and beamed in by video. All this allowed the show to deliver better entertainment while leaving room for thoughtfulness and giddiness, and both together. For the first time in a long time, the Broadway on TV felt like the one I know. JESSE GREENWrong-footed openingSara Krulwich/The New York TimesThe Neil Patrick Harris years set an imposing bar for Tony broadcast opening numbers, and this year’s attempt, a strained variety-show knockoff that prematurely promised “this party’s for you,” didn’t end the drought. The Tonys would have done better opening with “Empire State of Mind” from “Hell’s Kitchen” — the night’s highest-wattage performance, featuring Alicia Keys and Jay-Z. Or, better if not bolder: “Willkommen” from “Cabaret,” which was expertly staged for the camera and drenched in Eddie Redmayne’s kooky charisma. SCOTT HELLERThird time’s the charmWendell Pierce presenting Kara Young with her Tony, which she received for “Purlie Victorious.”Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      ‘The Outsiders’ Wins Tony Award for Best Musical, ‘Stereophonic’ Best Play

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      “The Outsiders,” a muscular musical based on the classic young adult novel, was named best new musical at the Tony Awards on Sunday night, while “Stereophonic,” a behind-the music play about a band making an album, was named best new play.Stephen Sondheim’s “Merrily We Roll Along” completed a four-decade journey from flop to hit by winning the best musical revival prize, while “Appropriate,” Branden Jacobs-Jenkins’s family drama about a trio of siblings confronting an unsettling secret, won best play revival.Here are the highlights of the 77th Tony Awards ceremony, which took place at Lincoln Center in Manhattan and was hosted by Ariana DeBose:We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Maleah Joi Moon Wins a Tony for Her Debut in Alicia Keys’s ‘Hell’s Kitchen’

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      Maleah Joi Moon won the Tony Award for best leading actress in a musical on Sunday night for her Broadway debut in “Hell’s Kitchen,” a fictionalized remix of Alicia Keys’s childhood.Moon recently spoke with The New York Times about earning a Tony nomination for her first professional role, a 17-year-old girl who discovered a gift for piano while chafing under her mother’s vigilance.“It’s surreal and it’s ridiculous and crazy and insane and all the things,” said Moon, 21. “But my inner child — the one that wanted to be Nala on Broadway — is like, this is aligned. It’s divine alignment. I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t meant.”The other nominees in the best leading actress category were Eden Espinosa (“Lempicka”), Maryann Plunkett (“The Notebook”), Kelli O’Hara (“Days of Wine and Roses”) and Gayle Rankin (“Cabaret”).Moon’s first stage role was playing Dorothy in a school production of “The Wizard of Oz” — the same role that Keys first played as a child. She then threw herself into school productions: “Annie,” “Shrek,” “Sister Act,” “Rent,” “Into the Woods,” “Peter and the Starcatcher” and “West Side Story.”Before securing the role in “Hell’s Kitchen,” Moon had auditioned on Broadway for the role of young Nala in “The Lion King” and the musical “Six.” After her Tony win was announced on Sunday, she stayed in her seat for several seconds, stunned and sobbing.During her acceptance speech, Moon thanked her parents as well as Keys and the creative team at the Public Theater. “You saw something in me a few years ago, and you nurtured that thing ever since,” she said. More

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      ‘The Outsiders’ Wins the Tony for Best Musical

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      “The Outsiders,” a muscular stage adaptation of the classic young adult novel about class conflict between a pair of high school gangs, won the coveted Tony Award for best musical on Sunday.The show, which has been gaining steam at the box office, is set in Tulsa, Okla., in 1967, and is based not only on the best-selling 1967 novel by S.E. Hinton, but also on Francis Ford Coppola’s 1983 film adaptation.The musical is gritty, bloody and relentlessly youthful — the creative team eliminated virtually all adult characters, and the show features some of the most effectively vivid violence seen on a Broadway stage, using a mix of fight choreography, strobe-like lighting and percussive sound design to evoke the brutality pervading these adolescent lives. The show is saturated with water and dirt, but also with poetry and literature, as its orphaned protagonist turns to reading and writing to escape the circumstances of his childhood.The show received mixed reviews from critics; in The New York Times, the chief theater critic, Jesse Green, wrote that “many stunning things are happening on the stage of the Bernard B. Jacobs Theater — and from the sobs I heard the other night, in the audience, too.” But, he said, “structural problems mean its achievements don’t stick.”Nonetheless, in recent weeks the show has been playing to full houses, fueled in part by healthy interest from young patrons, and it has been grossing about $1 million a week, which is solid but not spectacular for a show of this scale. The Tony Award should provide the show with a box office boost.“The Outsiders” features a score from the country duo Jamestown Revival in collaboration with the Broadway musical artist Justin Levine; the musical’s book is by the playwright Adam Rapp, also in collaboration with Levine. It is directed by Danya Taymor — a niece of “The Lion King” director Julie Taymor, she is helming a major musical for the first time — and choreographed by the brothers Rick and Jeff Kuperman.The musical began its production life with a run last year at the nonprofit La Jolla Playhouse in San Diego. The Broadway production, which opened in April, has a huge producing team led by the Araca Group, established by two brothers, Matthew and Michael Rego, and their childhood friend Hank Unger. The show was capitalized for $22 million, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.To win the best musical Tony, “The Outsiders” bested “Hell’s Kitchen,” “Illinoise,” “Suffs” and “Water for Elephants.”A cast recording of “The Outsiders” was released in May by Sony Masterworks Broadway. And the musical’s producers have announced plans to start a North American tour in the fall of 2025, opening at the Tulsa Performing Arts Center. More