GLAM AT THE TONYS
Check out the winners on Broadway’s biggest night
How did they pick Kevin Spacey to host the Tony Awards?
No one else was available — or at least that was the running joke of Spacey’s freshman hosting effort: that Billy Crystal, James Corden, Neil Patrick Harris and other veteran Tony hosts couldn’t make it.
It might be a question the organizers were asking themselves during the CBS broadcast Sunday night, which started on an amusing note as Spacey got a helping hand in the opening medley from A-list stars, including Stephen Colbert, dressed like a groundhog; Whoopi Goldberg, emerging from a closet; and Billy Crystal, who offered a pep talk via remote feed.
As the evening wore on, Spacey presided over the show in the guise of famous personalities, with varying degrees of success.
In one of the funnier bits, he showed up as Johnny Carson and pretended to be “seer” Carnac the Magnificent. Holding an envelope, à la Carnac, Spacey told the audience, “I’m going to guess the answer to 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 show also won best costume design for a musical and best performance for a featured actor in a musical 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.
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 won best 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. Jitney, a 1982 play by August Wilson just making its Broadway debut, won best play revival. Best 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. Indecent also won best lighting design.
Best 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. Best score went to Dear Evan Hansen, which opened in December to rapturous reviews and instantaneous Tony predictions. The score was from theater darlings Benj Pasek and Justin Paul (they won an Oscar for City of Stars from La La Land). In a surprise win for Oslo, a hit drama that draws drama and emotion from secret peace talks between the Israelis and Palestinians, Michael Aronov took home best featured actor in a play, beating out the heavily favored Danny DeVito for The Price.