Platt, Midler win at Tonys
Dear Evan Hansen, the touching, heartfelt musical about young outsiders, has won the biggest theater popularity contest—winning the Best New Musical trophy at the Tony Awards along with five other statuettes, including Best Score, Book and Top Actor honor for Ben Platt.
The show came into the night as the second-leading Tony nominee but ended up on top, with a revival of Hello, Dolly! starring Bette Midler next with four Tonys. Oslo, a three-hour meditation on diplomacy, was named Best Play.
Midler took the Best Actress trophy and—to the amusement and cheers of the audience— refused to be played off, forcing the swelling orchestra into silence.
Dear Evan Hansen is a show that centers on a profoundly lonely 17-year-old who fabricates a prior friendship with a classmate who has just committed suicide.
Platt had this message to young people: "The things that make you strange are the things that make you powerful."
Benj Pasek and Justin Paul, who recently won an Oscar for the song City of Stars from the movie La La Land, added to a remarkable year by earning Tonys for Best Score for writing the songs for Dear Evan Hansen. Sex and the City 's Cynthia Nixon won her second Tony, this time for her work in Lillian Hellman's The Little Foxes.
Kevin Kline won his third Tony Award playing an egomaniacal matinee idol in the midst of
personal turmoil in the play Present Laughter.
Kevin Spacey kicked off his first-ever Tony Award hosting gig with grace and self-deprecating wit, dancing, singing and joking his way through an opening number that linked all Best New Musical nominees. His Frank Underwood from
House of Cards also made a late appearance, striding onto the stage with his TV wife played by Robin Wright.