USA TODAY International Edition
BROADWAY PLACES DIVINE BETTE
Spacey is in good voice but night belongs to ‘ Evan’
this question. The answer is Bette Midler. The question is: ‘ What did my bookie tell me to put my money on? Bette Midler.’ ”
Turns out his prediction was spot- on as the Divine Miss M walked off, as expected, with the win for her lead role in Hello,
Dolly! The musical also won costume design and performance by a featured actor for Gavin Creel.
Spacey also played Bill Clinton with jokes that were a bit flat. Pretending to be an actor, he intoned, “Is this a dagger I see before me, or is that just a cheese knife?”
More successful: a food break for the audience as Chazz Palminteri sold cannolis and Sara
Bareilles served pie.
The night’s big winner was Dear Evan Hansen, which won six awards including best musical and prizes for actor Ben Platt and featured actress Rachel Bay Jones.
Unlike the 2016 awards, which emphasized racial diversity amid a huge night for Hamilton, the Tonys were mostly quiet on current events. There were only a few subtle comments from actors including Cynthia Nixon, who was named featured actress in a play for her role in the revival of Lillian Hellman’s The Little Foxes, about greed and betrayal in a Southern family with shrinking prospects. Nixon alternated the top female roles in the play, Regina, the villainous manipulator and Birdie, the delicate alcoholic.
Many top awards went to the expected winners. Kevin Kline nabbed the Tony for leading actor in a play for Present Laughter. Jit
ney, a 1982 play by August Wilson just making its Broadway debut, won best revival. Direction of a play went to Indecent, about an early- 20th- century Yiddish drama that so scandalized the public it was shut down by the police.
Scenic design for a musical went to Natasha, Pierre and the Great Comet of 1812, an offbeat pop opera about Russian aristocrats in the early 19th century starring Josh Groban. The Tony for score went to Dear Evan Hansen, which opened in December to rapturous reviews and instantaneous Tony predictions. The score was from Benj Pasek and Justin Paul, who won an Oscar for City of Stars from La La Land. In a surprise win for Oslo, a drama about secret peace talks between the Israelis and Palestinians, Michael Aronov took home featured actor in a play, beating out Danny DeVito for The Price.