AT TONYS, ‘VIRGINIA WOOLF,’ ‘KINKY BOOTS,’ ‘VANYA AND SONIA’ WIN BIG

NEW YORK — Cyndi Lauper, making her Broadway debut, won a Tony Award on Sunday for writing the 15-song score to “Kinky Boots” and Christopher Durang’s comical “Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike” won the best play Tony.

Lauper thanked her old friend Harvey Fierstein, the book writer for “La Cage aux Folles” and “Newsies,” to lure her to Broadway. “Kinky Boots” also won for choreography and two technical awards, and Billy Porter won for leading man in a musical.

Diane Paulus and Pam MacKinnon both won for directing — a rare time women have won directing Tonys for both a musical and a play in the same year.

Paulus won her first Tony for directing the crackling, high-energy revival of the musical “Pippin,” which also earned Patina Miller a best leading actress trophy.

MacKinnon won for directing the play “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?,” a year after earning her first nomination for helming “Clybourne Park.” Her revival of Edward Albee’s story of marital strife won the best play revival and earned Oklahoma native Tracy Letts his first acting Tony, an upset beating of Tom Hanks.

Letts previously won the Tony and the Pulitzer for his play “August: Osage County,” whose film version — starring Meryl Streep and Julia Roberts was filmed in Oklahoma and opens later this year.

“The greatest job on Earth. We are the ones who say it to their faces, and we have a unique responsibility,” Letts said.