Hamilton rules Broadway
NEW YORK — Sunday’s Tony Awards were a hit with television viewers, beating last year’s ratings by 35 per cent.
The broadcast, which saw the Broadway blockbuster Hamilton win the award for best new musical, drew 8.73 million viewers, according to ratings released Monday by the Nielsen Co. It is the largest audience for the show since 2001.
James Corden, host of CBS’s The Late Late Show, presided over the awards-cast, which had sombre moments in the wake of Saturday’s nightclub shootings in Orlando, Florida.
Hamilton, Lin-Manuel Miranda’s hip-hop flavoured biography about the first U.S. treasury secretary, won 11 Tonys, just short of breaking the 12-Tony record held by The Producers.
Jeffrey Seller, producer of Hamilton, quoted the show’s lyrics when accepting the best-musical crown. “Look around, look around. How lucky we are to be alive right now,” he said.
Broadway’s boast of being more diverse than the Oscars was proved, with black actors winning four awards in the acting categories — a history-making sweep of the musical categories — and whites winning the remaining four for plays.
Hamilton went into the night with 16 nominations and, in addition to taking the musical award, won best score, best book, direction, orchestration, choreography and best featured actor and actress statuettes for Renee Elise Goldsberry and Daveed Diggs.
Leslie Odom Jr., who plays Aaron Burr, won best actor in a musical and cheered Miranda for “a new vision of what’s possible.”
The show won awards for costume and lighting but lost scenic design to She Loves Me, meaning Hamilton couldn’t break the record haul by The Producers. Still, few shows get introduced by a sitting president, as Barack and Michelle Obama did for the performance by the show’s cast.
The awards show unspooled with a heavy heart a night after a gunman killed 50 people at a gay Florida nightclub, prompting a Broadway tribute to the victims at the top of the show and a smattering of references to tolerance throughout it.
Host James Corden dedicated the night to celebrating the diversity of Broadway. “Hate will never win. Together we have to make sure of that. Tonight’s show stands as a symbol and a celebration of that principle,” he said.
Barbra Streisand returned to the Tony stage for the first time in 46 years and acknowledged the killings. “Tonight our joy is tinged with sorrow but we’re here to celebrate Broadway and the beauty that artistry can bring into this world.” Art, she said, can “at times like these console us.”
But for much of the telecast, the mood was light and typical of an awards show.
Miranda, the star and creator of Hamilton, won for best score and book, and during one of his trips to the stage, he read from a sonnet, referencing tragedy and urging “love and love and love . . . . ”
Thomas Kail won the Tony for directing Hamilton. He thanked Miranda, a frequent collaborator, and celebrated the diversity of Broadway this season. “Let’s continue to tell stories,” he said.
British actress Cynthia Erivo won the best actress award for her Broadway debut in The Color Purple. Her show won the best musical revival award in 2016.
The Humans, about a fractious family’s get-together, was the second most decorated show with four awards, including best new play. The play also earned wins for two mainstays of the New York stage — Jayne Houdyshell and her stage husband, Reed Birney. Both won for featured roles.
Jessica Lange won her first Tony for playing a drug-addled mother in the revival of the monumental Long Day’s Journey Into Night. Frank Langella won his fourth Tony for playing a man who has begun his slide into dementia in The Father.