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      How ‘Maybe Happy Ending’ Overcame a Shaky Start and Won Big at the Tonys

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      Broadway’s best musical winner had to delay its opening last fall and was selling poorly. But strong word-of-mouth and reviews helped this quirky show triumph.“Maybe Happy Ending” had a very unhappy beginning.The show’s triumph at Sunday night’s Tony Awards, where it won six honors, including best new musical, capped a remarkable turnaround for a small production with a baffling title and a hard-to-sell premise that was seen by industry insiders as dead on arrival when it began previews last fall.But in the wee hours of Monday morning, as the quirky show’s performers and producers partied with their creative team and investors at the Bryant Park Grill, the celebrants finally allowed themselves to acknowledge that their against-all-odds show is breaking though.Shen and Criss play robots in a story about isolation, memory and love that received overwhelmingly positive reviews.Jeenah Moon for The New York Times“We didn’t know if this show would even open,” said its star, Darren Criss, who won his first Tony for playing Oliver, an outdated helperbot who strikes up a life-changing (well, shelf-life-changing) relationship with a robot across the hall. Criss, an Emmy winner (for “American Crime Story”) and “Glee” alumnus, is also a member of the show’s producing team.“We didn’t have the luxury to dream about a scenario like this,” he said. “This was definitely the little show that could.”How bad did things get? Last summer, the show’s lead producers, Jeffrey Richards and Hunter Arnold, postponed the first performance by a month, citing supply chain issues, which the producers insist were real (there was a delay in the availability of digital video tiles from China), but which many thought was a cover story to hide financial problems.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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      Billy Porter in ‘La Cage aux Folles’ Highlights City Center Season

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      Also in the lineup: “Bat Boy: The Musical” and a production of “The Wild Party.”A musical comedy about a half-boy, half-bat creature, directed by a Tony winner, and an all-Black revival of the farce “La Cage aux Folles,” starring Billy Porter, will highlight the 2025-26 musical theater season at New York City Center.The four-show lineup is the first chosen by the center’s new vice president and artistic director of musical theater, Jenny Gersten, who is taking over programming from Lear deBessonet, who was named the artistic director of Lincoln Center Theater.Gersten, who had for three years been the artistic director of the Williamstown Theater Festival in Massachusetts before joining New York City Center as vice president and producer in 2020, said she aimed to focus on the original mission of the 32-year-old Encores! concert series, which stages short-run productions of decades-old musicals, many of which are rarely revived.“A lot of people think about the Encores! series as being for revivals of musicals that you might not otherwise see, but the rationale for Encores! was always the chance to hear the orchestrations as they were originally intended,” she said.First up is the annual gala presentation, which will be “Bat Boy: The Musical” (Oct. 29-Nov. 9). This irreverent horror-rock musical, inspired by stories from a supermarket tabloid, centers on a cave-dwelling creature (Bat Boy) who searches for acceptance and love in a small town. It will be helmed by Alex Timbers, who won a Tony Award in 2021 for directing “Moulin Rouge! The Musical.” The story and book are by Keythe Farley and Brian Flemming, with music and lyrics by Laurence O’Keefe (“Legally Blonde: The Musical”).Next, the Encores! series will begin with a production of the supernatural musical comedy “High Spirits” (Feb. 4-15), based on Noël Coward’s 1941 play “Blithe Spirit” about a man coping with his dead wife’s ghost. Though the musical, whose score and book are by Hugh Martin (“Meet Me in St. Louis”) and Timothy Gray, was nominated for eight Tonys, it won none and was never revived on Broadway. It will be directed by Jessica Stone (“Kimberly Akimbo,” “Water for Elephants”).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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      Meet Broadway’s Teen Whisperer

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      Danya Taymor grew up in Northern California. She was a theater kid, a volleyball player, an occasional renegade, but also an excellent student. “I had some rebellious moments, but I always felt really bad after,” she said on a recent morning. As adults, some of us keep the adolescents we were at a distance. Others, like Taymor, hold them close.Taymor, now 36, loves the bravery of teenagers, their humor, their emotional intensity. She has made a name for herself putting that intensity onstage. Last year she won a Tony Award, her first, for directing the musical adaptation of “The Outsiders,” a violent and mournful coming-of-age tale. This year, she was nominated for another Tony, for her direction of Kimberly Belflower’s “John Proctor Is the Villain,” which uses the crucible of a high school English class to examine questions of power and gender. She is currently directing “Trophy Boys,” a barbed comedy about a high school debate team.What makes Taymor so adept at staging stories of teenagers?“I just take them seriously,” Taymor said.Taymor was speaking over breakfast (green tea, avocado toast) at a cafe next door to MCC Theater on the Far West Side of Manhattan, where performances of “Trophy Boys” would begin in about a week. I had visited rehearsal a few days before. Four female and nonbinary actors in their 20s and 30s play a team of high school boys charged with taking the affirmative position on the resolution that feminism has failed women. The hourlong dramedy is set in a social studies classroom during argument prep. The classroom’s walls were decorated with pictures of girl boss heroes — Malala Yousafzai, Ruth Bader Ginsburg. As a joke that wasn’t entirely a joke, the stage manager had hung a picture of Taymor among them.Danya Taymor, center right, with Esco Jouléy, seated, and others during rehearsal for “Trophy Boys,” about high schoolers charged with arguing that feminism has failed women.Dina Litovsky for The New York TimesThe actors — Emmanuelle Mattana, the writer of the play, among them — rehearsed the play’s opening moments, which include a stylized, somewhat lewd dance sequence. When it concluded, Taymor, in a blouse and high-waisted pants, sat herself onstage to work through it. In that tiny classroom chair, she appeared both authoritative and approachable, genuinely curious about how the actors felt.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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      “Hamilton” Original Cast: Where Are They Now?

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      Lin-Manuel Miranda and others reunited for a medley at the Tonys on Sunday, celebrating the 10th anniversary of the show’s opening.It has been nearly 10 years since the original cast of “Hamilton” hit Broadway, igniting an international frenzy and becoming the biggest phenomenon the Great White Way had seen in years.On Sunday, 28 members from that cast reunited on the Tonys stage to perform a whirlwind medley of the show’s biggest numbers. They performed portions of “Non-Stop,” “My Shot,” “The Schuyler Sisters,” “Guns and Ships,” “You’ll Be Back,” “Yorktown,” “The Room Where It Happens” and “History Has Its Eyes on You.”At the 2016 Tonys, “Hamilton” earned 16 nominations and won 11 prizes. Soon after, many of its cast members left the show to take time off or to pursue other projects.Here is a rundown of where everyone has been since that momentous opening run.Lin-Manuel MirandaMiranda transformed Broadway with “Hamilton,” which he wrote and starred in, playing the founding father Alexander Hamilton. Miranda’s rise to the top of Hollywood began after he left the show in 2016. That year he contributed to the score of “Moana,” the animated feature, earning an Academy Award nomination for the original song “How Far I’ll Go.” Years later he earned another Oscar nomination for the original song “Dos Oruguitas” from the animated film “Encanto.” He also wrote for other musical films including, “Mufasa: The Lion King” and “The Little Mermaid,” the live-action remake starring Halle Bailey.He played Jack in “Mary Poppins Returns” opposite Emily Blunt in 2018 and starred as the piragüero in the 2021 film adaptation of “In the Heights,” the Broadway show he and Quiara Alegría Hudes created.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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      Nicole Scherzinger and Other Tony Winners Party After the Awards

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      On Sunday night, after all the Tonys had been handed out, the comedian Alex Edelman took the stage during the official after-party at the Museum of Modern Art.“One day more,” he sang, waving his arms, trying to recruit others to join him behind the microphone in a rousing one-man rendition of a song from the musical “Les Misérables.”“Another day, another destiny … ”Mr. Edelman, who received a special Tony Award last year for his one-man show “Just for Us,” slowly gathered his army of fellow performers: Betsy Wolfe, Jessica Vosk and Casey Likes. Soon, more than half a dozen stars were belting not just their own parts, but every part.A cabaret moment is a familiar scene for any theater party, even on a night celebrating an unusual Broadway season.It has been a banner year on the district’s 41 stages, thanks in large part to a flurry of shows with screen stars on the marquee: “Good Night, and Good Luck” (George Clooney), “The Picture of Dorian Gray” (Sarah Snook, who won a Tony Award for playing 26 different characters), “Othello” (Denzel Washington and Jake Gyllenhaal) and “Glengarry Glen Ross” (Bob Odenkirk, Bill Burr and Kieran Culkin), among others.Many actors were making their Broadway debut.“I’m so lucky to get to do it,” Sadie Sink, best known for her role as the tomboy Max in Netflix’s science fiction drama series “Stranger Things,” said at the MoMA party, celebrating her first nomination.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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      Nicole Scherzinger, Sarah Snook and Other First-Time Tony Winners Discuss Their Victories

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      Here’s what Sarah Snook, Nicole Scherzinger, Cole Escola and four other Tony Award newbies had to say about their wins.At the 78th Tony Awards on Sunday night, there was much excitement about the Broadway actors who won their first Tonys — including stage veterans like Natalie Venetia Belcon and newcomers like Cole Escola. Here’s what those seven actors had to say about winning their first Tony Award, in speeches delivered from the ceremony or in the press room.Best Leading Actress in a PlaySarah Snook, ‘The Picture of Dorian Gray’Snook, already an Emmy winner for “Succession,” won a Tony for playing all 26 roles in the stage adaptation of Oscar Wilde’s “The Picture of Dorian Gray.” Now, she can sit her Tonys statuette next to her Olivier award, which she won in 2024 — just after having her first child — for the same performance in London’s West End.It’s a thing that I guess all working moms and fathers have is that the hope is by pursuing your dreams and also the ways that you can remain present with your family, you encourage your children and the people who you love most in the world to also remember who they are and who they want to be when they grow up, and that it is OK to pursue that.Best Leading Actor in a PlayCole Escola, ‘Oh, Mary!’Cole Escola, accepting their Tony for best leading actor in a play for the comedy “Oh, Mary!”Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesEscola, an alt-cabaret performer who wrote and stars in the comedy “Oh, Mary!,” became the first nonbinary performer honored with a Tony in this category. In the show, which they developed for over a decade, they play a drunken, cabaret-aspiring Mary Todd Lincoln. It is their Broadway debut.Trust that voice that says I think I’m right, actually. I actually think I do have something. I think I can do this. It might take 12 years to put the pen to paper, but that voice is right.Best Leading Actress in a MusicalNicole Scherzinger, ‘Sunset Boulevard’Nicole Scherzinger, who won for best leading actress in a musical for “Sunset Boulevard,” said: “Just keep on giving and giving because the world needs your love and your light.”Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesAfter a powerful performance of “As If We Never Said Goodbye” earlier in the ceremony, Scherzinger, the former lead singer of the Pussycat Dolls, received her first Tony, for playing the washed-up silent film star, Norma Desmond, in a revival of “Sunset Boulevard.” Like Snook, she also won an Olivier in 2024 for her London performance in the role.Growing up, I always felt like I didn’t belong. But you all have made me feel like I belong. And I have come home at last. So if there’s anyone out there who feels like they don’t belong or your time hasn’t come, don’t give up. Just keep on giving and giving because the world needs your love and your light.Best Leading Actor in a MusicalDarren Criss, ‘Maybe Happy Ending’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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      Tony Awards Unforgettable Looks: Cole Escola, Nicole Scherzinger, and More

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      On Sunday night, some of the biggest names in theater gathered at Radio City Music Hall in Manhattan to celebrate the Tony Awards.From Hollywood royalty like George Clooney to Broadway legends like Audra McDonald — neither of whom won in their categories — there was no shortage of stars at this year’s awards.There was also no shortage of fashion. On the red carpet, there were sartorial references to past Tony winners and nods to current roles, all conveyed through cloth, beadwork and color.And, of course, it wouldn’t be live theater without at least a few costume changes.The event’s host, Cynthia Erivo, slipped in and out of at least a half-dozen outfits before the curtain closed as she belted out a parody version of a “Dreamgirls” song in a purple sequined number. That was another homage, lest you forget, as Ms. Erivo won a Tony in 2016 for her star turn in “The Color Purple.” Showbiz — it isn’t always subtle!Of all the stars who graced the seats of Radio City on Sunday, here are a dozen whose attire stood out among the ensemble cast.Cole Escola: Most ’90s Nostalgia!Evan Agostini/Invision, via Associated PressWe 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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      Best and Worst Moments From the 2025 Tony Awards

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      There was a “Hamilton” reunion, Nicole Scherzinger’s outsize grandeur and Cynthia Erivo’s pleasant “sing-off” music. But those cheesy projections were a big miss.Best Reunion: The ‘Hamilton’ CastIt was plugged before what seemed like every commercial break, but when members of the original cast of “Hamilton” finally gathered onstage at Radio City Music Hall for a 10th-anniversary reunion performance, the hype proved justified. Sleekly lit and dressed and choreographed, Lin-Manuel Miranda and Leslie Odom Jr. were gloriously back; so were Phillipa Soo, Renée Elise Goldsberry and Jasmine Cephas Jones and that Tony-nominated guy who played King George. The eight-song medley — which included “My Shot,” “The Schuyler Sisters” and “The Room Where It Happens”— snapped. I’d make room for it on any list of all-time-best Tonys performances.— Scott HellerBest Inspiration: Here’s to You, Mr. RobinsonGary Edwin Robinson, the head of the theater arts program at Boys and Girls High School in Brooklyn, accepting his special Tony Honor.Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesThe smooth baritone, the sly half-smile and the wink at the camera. This guy had to be an actor. And, once upon a time, he was. But Gary Edwin Robinson received a Tony Award last night for his second career, as a teacher, at Boys and Girls High School in the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood of Brooklyn. Accepting the honor in that voice that could make you believe anything, he said that he trained his students not merely to appreciate theater, but to find careers in it. Appreciation is of course valuable, but the harder thing is to instill in young people the idea that finding “the theater in themselves” can be honorable, and even necessary.— Jesse GreenBest Epic Acceptance: Nicole ScherzingerAn outsize grandeur animated Nicole Scherzinger’s acceptance speech.Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesNicole Scherzinger’s acceptance speech was as epically demonstrative as her movements in “Sunset Boulevard” are controlled, restrained, precise. The acknowledging of “the exceptional warrior women in this category”! The shaking! The crying! The swooping motions from the hand that was not holding her new award! At times it felt like seeing a modern Maria Callas shaking her fist at the heavens, except that for once those heavens had ruled in her favor. There was an outsize grandeur to the drama of it all that felt classical. Can Medea be far off?— Elisabeth VincentelliBest Placement: Cynthia Erivo’s Balcony BitReady to mingle: The show’s host Cynthia Erivo in the balcony.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