The ceremony was marked by the writers’ strike in the US
with close to four million viewers, are far from awards like the Oscars or the Grammys
The play ‘Kimberly Akimbo’, which tells the story of a girl who suffers from a degenerative disease that makes her age rapidly, was awarded this Sunday with the Tony Award for best musical of Broadway, at a gala marked by the writers’ strike.
‘Kimberly Akimbo’, which came with nine nominations, won a total of five awards, including best actresswhich went to Victoria Clark, Best Supporting Actress (Bonnie Milligan), Best Writer (David Lindsay-Abaire), and Best Song Written for a Play or Musical.
The musical ‘Some Like It Hot’based on the film of the same name directed and produced by Billy Wilder in 1959, won four awards: best costumes, best choreography, best orchestration and best leading actor, a Tony that went to J. Harrison Ghee.
The two male acting awards in the musical section went to two actors who identify as non-binary: J. Harrison Ghee himself and Alex Newell, chosen for best supporting actor for his role in Shucked, a comedy set in rural America.
‘Some Like It Hot’, whose film version was known in Spain as ‘Con faldas ya lo loco’, started as the great favorite of the night with 13 nominations.
the work is set in alcohol prohibition-era Chicago and tells the story of two musicians forced to leave the city after witnessing an attack by the mafia, which will begin to persecute them throughout the country.
The Tony for best director went to Michael Arden for his work on the musical Parade, based on the lynching at the turn of the last century of a Jewish businessman in Georgia.
Parade was also awarded the Tony for Best New Version of a Musical.
The theater, second pillar of Broadway
During the ceremony, which had actress and singer Ariana DeBose as emceeawards were also given to the best plays that have passed through the exclusive stages of the Broadway circuit in New York.
In this section, prevailed ‘Leopoldstadt’, which tells the story of a Jewish family in Vienna at the end of the 30s of the last century and how Nazi anti-Semitism suffers.
‘Leopoldstadt’ won the Tony for best play and best director, Patrick Marber.
The award for best costumes and best supporting actor (Brandon Uranowitz) also went to this work, which competed, among others, with Samuel L. Jackson, for his role in ‘The Piano Lesson’
The British Jodie Comer was chosen as the best leading actress., for his performance in ‘Prima Facie’; while Sean Hayes, from the play ‘Good Night, Oscar’, won the Tony for best leading actor.
A ceremony marked by the writers’ strike
The celebration on the scheduled date of the awards was pending until the last moment due to the strike that the unions maintain of screenwriters against Hollywood production companies, including Paramount and CBSthe two platforms that broadcast the ceremony from the United Palace theater, located in the Upper Manhattan neighborhood of New York.
It was finally done, but provided that no scripts could be used for the presentation, which meant that the long five-hour ceremony had hardly any interventions beyond those of the guests introducing the nominees and reading out the names of the winners and the short speeches by the winners.
Already at the start of the show, which as usual It also served as a showcase for several of the nominated works to present a number or a live scene, Ariana DeBose joked that it was live and without a script.
Also, some winners, such as David Lindsay-Abaire, chosen as the best musical screenwriter by Kimberly Akimbo, came out to collect the Tony wearing a WGA Writers Guild pin.
‘We just want to be treated fairly’he said into the microphone. An adherence that was also verbalized by actress Victoria Clark when she picked up the Tony for best musical actress.
In addition, during the celebration also words of solidarity with minorities were heard and, in particular, with the LGTBI community, as well as condemnations against intolerance, homophobia and racism.
The ceremony of the Tony, with nearly four million viewers, in the little sister of the award ceremonies in the United States, where the Oscars are seen live by more than 18 million viewers and the Grammys by 12.5 million.