Tony Awards (Theater Awards)

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      'Hamilton' Star Leslie Odom Jr. Hosts Tony Awards Concert

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      The host of tonight’s Tony Awards concert — the portion of the evening broadcast on CBS — is Leslie Odom Jr., who arrived on Broadway as a replacement in “Rent,” but got his big break when he joined the original cast of “Hamilton” as Aaron Burr.Odom, 40, won a Tony Award in 2016 for “Hamilton,” and this year was nominated for two Academy Awards for his work as both a performer and songwriter for the film “One Night in Miami.”He was also featured in the films “Murder on the Orient Express” and “Harriet,” and will appear in the forthcoming “Knives Out 2.” His work on television has included “Smash” and “Central Park.” Also: he has recorded several albums of music.Raised in Philadelphia and educated at Carnegie Mellon University, he now lives in Los Angeles. He is married to the actress Nicolette Robinson, and they have two children.Odom was an outspoken advocate for profit-sharing by the cast of “Hamilton,” helping to lead a successful campaign to persuade that show’s producers to give a small percentage of the profits to members of the original company. More

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      Adrienne Warren Wins Her First Tony Award, for 'Tina'

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      Adrienne Warren is only staying in “Tina — The Tina Turner Musical” for a few weeks. But now, when she leaves, she can take a Tony Award with her.Warren’s performance as Turner, a role she originated in London and then again when the show opened in New York in 2019, has thrilled audiences. Jesse Green, a theater critic for The New York Times, wrote, “In a performance that is part possession, part workout and part wig, Adrienne Warren rocks the rafters and dissolves your doubts about anyone daring to step into the diva’s high heels.”“I really look forward to the day that the bodies and souls and spirits of those that are involved in these shows that we’re celebrating can be invited and join the celebration with us,” she said in her acceptance speech. “Because those bodies, those bodies, those souls, those spirits, they are what makes Broadway.” “And the second we started making this business,” she continued, “and creating the business and working through the business through the lens of humanity and honoring those, those bodies and those souls and those spirits, the more the art will be transformative. The more the art will change lives, the more the art will change this world because the world has been screaming for us to change.”“I am so grateful for this,” she concluded, “it means the world to me, thank you so, so much.“Tina,” which has been closed since the start of the pandemic shutdown, is scheduled to resume performances on Oct. 8 with Warren in the title role; she is planning to depart the production on Oct. 31, and will be succeeded by Nkeki Obi-Melekwe.Warren is starring as Mamie Till-Mobley, the mother of Emmett Till, in an upcoming ABC series, “Women of the Movement,” with a producing team that includes Jay-Z and Will Smith. And she recently signed a development deal with another of the show’s producers, Kapital Entertainment.Warren, 34, grew up in Virginia and studied acting at Marymount Manhattan College. She made her Broadway debut in 2012 in “Bring It On: The Musical,” and then four years later had a breakthrough role with her Tony-nominated performance in “Shuffle Along, Or The Making of the Musical Sensation of 1921 and All That Followed.”In 2016, Warren was among the founders of the Broadway Advocacy Coalition, which seeks to to combat racism. The organization is being honored this year with a special Tony Award. More

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      Aaron Tveit Wins Tony Award for 'Moulin Rouge! The Musical'

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      Aaron Tveit is now a Tony winner.This year was the first time Tveit has been nominated, and the circumstances were unusual: he was the only person nominated in the category, best leading actor in a musical.Still, his win was not guaranteed: to claim the prize, he had to win the support of 60 percent of those who cast ballots in that category. And he did.Tveit, 37, won for his performance as Christian, the besotted bohemian at the heart of “Moulin Rouge! The Musical,” which is adapted from the 2001 Baz Luhrmann film.In accepting his award, he said, “We are so privileged to get to do this, to be on Broadway, to have a life in the theater.”He added: “Let’s continue to strive to tell the stories that represent the many and not the few, by the many and not the few, for the many and not the few. Because what we do changes people’s lives. It changes people’s minds. It change’s people’s hearts. We can change the world with this. Let’s not forget that. This means more to me than I can ever say.”Tveit arrived on Broadway as a heartthrob, playing the love interests in “Hairspray” (as a replacement Link Larkin) and “Wicked” (as a replacement Fiyero). His breakout came in 2009, when he starred as a dead adolescent, Gabe, in the hit show “Next to Normal”; he followed that up with a starring role as the con man Frank Abagnale Jr. in the short-lived stage adaptation of “Catch Me If You Can.”Tveit, who is from the Hudson Valley and was educated at Ithaca College, is also known for starring in the “Grease: Live” television special (he played greaser-in-chief Danny Zuko) and for featured performances in a “Les Misérables” film adaptation (as the revolutionary Enjolras), and, most recently, this summer’s Apple TV Plus streamer “Schmigadoon!” (he was the bad boy carnival barker). More

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      'Freestyle Love Supreme' Wins Special Award at the Tony Awards

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      The vast majority of the Tony Awards granted on Sunday are honoring shows that have been rehearsed to an excessive degree — every step onstage precisely choreographed, every note and line repeated to perfection.And while the cast of “Freestyle Love Supreme” has undoubtedly put in their share of rehearsal time to do what they do, the show is receiving a special Tony Award for creating something entirely different: an improvised, rapped, beat-boxed musical performance whipped up anew every night from audience suggestions.The honor comes at a fitting time for the industry: It was a production that, by its nature, celebrated the fleeting and constantly reinventive experience of seeing live theater.The show ran for several months at the Booth Theater starting in September 2019, and it is set to return to Broadway on Oct. 7, followed by a national tour starting in San Francisco. But the troupe’s origins go back to the early aughts, when it was established by Anthony Veneziale, Thomas Kail and, most recognizably, Lin-Manuel Miranda — before “In the Heights” and “Hamilton,” both Tony Award winners for best new musical.In his review for The New York Times, Ben Brantley wrote that it was an “exultant master course in the fine art of hip-hop.” Among the fluctuating cast on Broadway were Veneziale and Utkarsh Ambudkar, with a rotating lineup of surprise guest stars, including Miranda and fellow “Hamilton” alumni Daveed Diggs, Christopher Jackson and James Monroe Iglehart.Tony viewers who missed the 2019 run will get a taste of “Freestyle Love Supreme” at the end of the ceremony, when the cast is set to give the evening’s closing performance. More

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      Lois Smith Is the Oldest Performer to Win a Tony

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      Lois Smith, 90, is at last a Tony winner. And not just a winner — she is now the oldest performer to win a Tony Award for acting.“I love the processes of the live theater,” said Smith, who won for her portrayal of Margaret, the caretaker of a sanctuary for men dying of AIDS-related illnesses, in Part 2 of Matthew López’s more-than-six-hour epic “The Inheritance.”“I first worked on ‘The Inheritance’ in a workshop where Matthew López was finishing a play about the AIDS plague, and it was partly based on E.M. Forster’s book “Howards End,” which had been my favorite novel for as long as I can remember,” she continued. “E.M. Forster gave us — there’s a famous two-word message from “Howards End,” which is so apt, I think, tonight for all of us who are here celebrating the importance, the functions, of live theater: ‘Only connect.’ ”In his review of the play in The Times, Ben Brantley called Smith’s performance as the show’s sole female character “quietly brilliant.” She beat out Jane Alexander, 81, who was up for “Grand Horizons,” as well as Cora Vander Broek (“Linda Vista”), Annie McNamara (“Slave Play”) and Chalia La Tour (“Slave Play”).Cicely Tyson, who died earlier this year at 96, previously held the record. She was 88 in 2013 when she won in the same category for her role in the revival of Horton Foote’s “The Trip to Bountiful.”In an interview with Variety in March 2020, Smith acknowledged that her performance schedule in “The Inheritance” was pretty, well, cushy. She doesn’t appear onstage until late in the play, which was performed in two parts. So she only performed three times per week.“I think to myself, ‘Now what’s going to happen to me?’” she said. “This may be the end of me. Suppose somebody asks me to do eight shows a week, what am I going to say? It’s hard to imagine at this point!”She was first nominated for a Tony in 1990 for “The Grapes of Wrath,” and she was nominated again, in 1996, for “Buried Child” — both times for best featured actress in a play. More

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      Audra McDonald Will Host the Tonys With Leslie Odom Jr.

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      Audra McDonald has won more competitive Tony Awards than any other performer, and tonight, when she is a nominee for the ninth time, she is presiding over the awards ceremony.McDonald is splitting the hosting duties with the actor Leslie Odom Jr. She is hosting the streaming portion of the evening, from 7 to 9 p.m. Eastern on Paramount+, when most of the awards will be bestowed; he is presiding over the concert portion, from 9 to 11 p.m. on CBS.McDonald, 51, is a singular figure in the American theater, revered for her lyric soprano as well as her acting prowess, and last year, following the police killing of George Floyd, she helped found Black Theater United to press for change in the theater industry.How did she rack up her record-setting string of Tonys? She has won at least once in every acting category: leading actress in a musical (“Porgy & Bess”), leading actress in a play (“Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar & Grill”), featured actress in a musical (“Ragtime” and “Carousel”) and featured actress in a play (“A Raisin in the Sun” and “Master Class”).This year, she is again a nominee, for her starring role in the 2019 revival of “Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune.” The play was written by Terrence McNally, who died during the pandemic from complications of the coronavirus.McDonald, born in Berlin, raised in Fresno, Calif., and educated at Juilliard, has long been outspoken on social justice issues — her Twitter username is @AudraEqualityMc — and last year she helped pull together a group of Black Broadway stars to form Black Theater United. The organization has already made progress: This summer it persuaded many industry leaders, including theater owners and producers, to sign an agreement pledging to end the hiring of all-white creative teams, to rename a few theaters for Black artists, and to take many other steps to improve racial equity on Broadway.She also has an active career as a recording artist and concert performer, and she works regularly on television, including in “Private Practice” and “The Good Fight.” She is married to the actor Will Swenson, and has two daughters. More

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      'Jagged Little Pill' Producers Respond to Controversies

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      “Jagged Little Pill” barrels into tonight’s Tony Awards with 15 nominations, more than any other show — but also with its producers confronting two controversies that have prompted scrutiny and an apology.The show, a musical featuring Alanis Morissette songs and a script that explores a host of social issues, is one of three contenders for best musical, and is a leading contender in the best featured actress and best book categories. It plans to resume performances on Broadway next month.But in the run-up to the Tonys the show’s producers have found themselves responding to criticism over how depictions of a character’s gender identity evolved as the show developed, and over the accusation by a former member of the cast who said they were asked to delay a surgical procedure. (The Tony voting period ended in March, before that accusation became public.)On Saturday, the show’s lead producers, Vivek J. Tiwary, Arvind Ethan David and Eva Price, said that they had hired an employment lawyer to look into an accusation from the former cast member, Nora Schell, who uses the pronouns they and them, and who said the production had asked them to delay a procedure to remove vaginal cysts. The union representing stage performers, Actors’ Equity, also said it would investigate; Schell said a union vice president was among those who mishandled the medical concerns.The statement from the producers came a little more than a week after the musical had issued an apology for its response to concerns about the gender identity of one of the show’s main characters, Jo, who is played by Lauren Patten, a nominee for best featured actress in a musical.During the show’s pre-Broadway run, some people saw Jo as a rare example of nonbinary representation in a major musical; when the show then transferred to Broadway, some of those fans were disappointed with how the role had evolved.“In Jo, we set out to portray a character on a gender expansive journey without a known outcome,” the lead producers said. “Throughout the creative process, as the character evolved and changed, between Boston and Broadway, we made mistakes in how we handled this evolution. In a process designed to clarify and streamline, many of the lines that signaled Jo as gender nonconforming, and with them, something vital and integral, got removed from Jo’s character journey.”The producers said they had “hired a new dramaturgical team (which includes nonbinary, transgender and BIPOC representation), to revisit and deepen the script.”Schell, who was a member of the ensemble when the musical opened in late 2019, voiced their concerns about backstage treatment on Twitter.“During previews for the Broadway run of JAGGED LITTLE PILL I was intimidated, coerced and forced by multiple higher ups to put off CRITICAL AND NECESSARY surgery to remove growths from my vagina that were making me anemic,” Schell wrote.The producers responded with their own statement, declaring themselves “deeply troubled” by the claims and pledging to “take this matter very seriously.”“Broadway shows are by their very nature collaborative human efforts, so there is nothing more important to us than our people,” they said. “We are committed to continuing to nurture a work environment where everyone feels valued and respected.”On Saturday, one of the show’s Tony-nominated stars, Celia Rose Gooding, said on Twitter that she was concerned by the allegations. Responding to Schell’s tweet, she wrote, “this is unacceptable. nobody should have to put off necessary medical treatment for a show, ever.”And, in a more general tweet bidding farewell to the show, which she is leaving for a role in “Star Trek: Strange New Worlds,” she wrote that she “cannot ignore the harm Jagged has done to the trans and nonbinary community.” More

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      How Leslie Odom Jr. and Audra McDonald Will Host the Tony Awards

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      The two discussed the ceremony’s recognition of Broadway’s reopening, but also its pandemic losses.The Tony Awards are going to be a bit different this year.Delayed by the continuing pandemic, Sunday’s in-person ceremony will recognize shows that opened — and, in many cases, closed — long ago. The official after-party is canceled. And most of the prizes will be presented on a streaming service, so the televised portion of the evening can focus on marketing Broadway.But there is a solace for theater-lovers. Two familiar faces will be at the helm of the four-hour event at Broadway’s Winter Garden Theater: Audra McDonald, who has won more competitive Tonys than any other performer, and Leslie Odom Jr., who vaulted from “Hamilton” (for which he won a Tony) to Hollywood.They have their work cut out for them. Award shows have generally fared poorly during the pandemic, and the theater community is on edge as the industry seeks to recover from a devastating shutdown.In separate interviews, McDonald and Odom said they saw their roles as helping Broadway recover — reminding America that theaters are reopening, while celebrating artists and mourning those lost during the pandemic.“I want to be a part of whatever we can do to get the word out that Broadway is back,” said McDonald, who is hosting the first two hours, starting at 7 p.m. Eastern time and streaming on Paramount Plus. During that portion, most of the awards will be bestowed.Odom outlined a similar goal for his part of the evening, a two-hour show starting at 9 p.m. Eastern that will be broadcast on CBS. Primarily, it will be a concert, but it will also feature the awards for best musical, best play and best play revival. “I hope that we can remind people of the power of live performance,” Odom said, “which is a challenging thing to do on a television, but it’s what we’re tasked to do, and it’s our best hope in this moment.”McDonald with Michael Shannon in “Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune,” for which she is currently nominated for a Tony.Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesThe two hosts are at different stages of their careers. McDonald, 51, is a six-time Tony winner who has been described as the queen of Broadway; she is the only performer to have won an award in every acting category. She is again a nominee this year, for the play “Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune.” Odom, 40, wowed audiences as a charismatically ambitious Aaron Burr in “Hamilton,” then pivoted to screen work in Los Angeles and scored two Oscar nominations for “One Night in Miami.”McDonald brought up another aspect of their selection. They are both Black, which is noteworthy given that the last 11 Tony ceremonies have been hosted by white people. “It’s been a long time since we’ve had hosts of color up there,” McDonald said. “It models something, seeing two hosts of color representing theater and the Tonys.”Neither revealed any details about the evening. Will McDonald sing? “It’s post-2020,” she said. “Expect anything at all times.” And Odom? “My first words were use me up,” he said. “However I can help — if it’s a pie to the face, or singing a ‘Hamilton’ tune, whatever is of use, ask and allow me.”They pledged to honor the work done on shows staged during the truncated 2019-20 season, even as they remind viewers that Broadway has reopened. “It’s been so long that these nominees have waited, and to let them have their prom night is what I want to do,” McDonald said. “I want to make it about them and their accomplishments.”Broadway, Odom said, is “going to be OK, in time, but I don’t know how much time,” adding: “This is a tough spot we’re in, and I don’t want to be cavalier about what we’re facing. But in the end, there are young writers and performers all over the world trying to write with an urgency and a relevancy and a potency that gives theater new life and reminds us of its necessity.”Both said that they believed the traditional “in memoriam” segment of this year’s awards ceremony — the first Tonys night since June 2019 — would be especially important, with over 680,000 deaths from the pandemic so far in the United States alone.“Beyond making sure that we put on a great show for America, I also want to make sure that we get that ‘in memoriam’ section right, because we’ve lost so many, and we’ve been away for so long,” Odom said. “That’s a cloud hanging over the evening. There’s so many that we’ve lost from the theater, and we’ve lost a great deal of our audience as well.”For McDonald, those losses are personal. Among those who died of coronavirus complications was the playwright Terrence McNally, a longtime mentor, collaborator and friend. (He was a writer of three shows in which she starred: “Master Class,” “Ragtime” and “Frankie and Johnny.”) She said she is also mourning the deaths, since the last Tonys ceremony, of the actor Nick Cordero, who died after a long battle with Covid, as well as the actresses Zoe Caldwell, who died of Parkinson’s disease, and Rebecca Luker, who had amyotrophic lateral sclerosis.“Among the difficult things is that we haven’t been able to mourn them properly, because we haven’t been able to have gatherings,” she said. “That’s something else the pandemic has taken away. I think it will be an emotional moment in the show to recognize the great loss we’ve all suffered.”Odom, center, in “Hamilton,” for which he earned a Tony for leading actor in a musical.Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesMcDonald and Odom have been concerned about racial justice in America, and said that the issue would be on their minds during the Tonys.“I’m excited about the fact that there’s so much Black work being represented on Broadway this season, and I’m hopeful that there will be more awareness and more action toward making things more diverse and equitable, and making it more of an anti-racist space,” said McDonald. Last year, she co-founded Black Theater United, which recently negotiated an agreement with industry leaders that included a pledge to end the practice of hiring all-white creative teams.“We need to make sure the Broadway we left is not the Broadway we return to,” McDonald said, “but that it is a better place.”Odom said that a team of writers has been working on how to balance the show’s tone. “We have music and dance and great writers and a slew of talent, and we want first and foremost to entertain folks,” he said. “But beyond that, the show needs to come out of the truth of where we are. We need to honor this moment that we’re in, and deal with it honestly.”Neither McDonald nor Odom saw many of the nominated shows, but they did both see “Slave Play,” Jeremy O. Harris’s daring exploration of slavery’s lingering legacy, which, with 12 Tony nominations, has the most nominations of any play in the awards’ history. McDonald said that the play “rocked me to my core.” Odom called it “a hard watch” and said, “there were parts I didn’t recognize, but the big lesson for me is when a younger person is speaking, and there is something you don’t recognize, that means it’s something for you to investigate.”Now that Broadway is reopening, Odom said, he wants to see “Pass Over,” Antoinette Chinonye Nwandu’s existential drama about two Black men trapped on a street corner. He’d also like to visit “Tina: The Tina Turner Musical” (to catch Adrienne Warren’s Tony-nominated performance); “Hamilton” (to see the new cast); and “The Lion King.”McDonald, who saw “Tina” before the pandemic hit, said that she plans to wait a few months before joining audiences on Broadway because her 4-year-old daughter is not yet eligible for a vaccine. “I’m being super-careful about where I go and what I do right now,” McDonald said. “But as soon as she is vaccinated, I will get back out there as an audience member.”As for when they will return to Broadway as performers, Odom said, “I’m on the hunt.”“I’m looking for old great plays and musicals that haven’t been revived, and I’m meeting new fantastic writers and exciting young composers when I can,” he said. “I do expect it to happen.”McDonald already has her next role lined up, although she wasn’t ready to discuss details. “I won’t get on the stage this season,” she said, “but I look forward to getting onstage next season.” More