The 76th annual Tony Awards that honours live Broadway theatre was presented on Sunday by The Broadway League and the American Theatre Wing. The Tony Awards 2023 moved to the new location of the United Palace in New York City’s Washington Heights this year.
Kimberly Akimbo won the best musical, and Leopoldstadt was named best play. While Suzan-Lori Parks’ Topdog/Underdog won the best revival of a play, Parade won the best revival of a musical. Jodie Comer won best performance by an Actress in a Play for Prima Facie in the lead acting category. Correspondingly, Sean Hayes won Best Actor in a Play for his performance in Good Night, Oscar. And then, Victoria Clark won Best Actress in a Musical for Kimberly Akimbo. Meanwhile, openly nonbinary actor J. Harrison Ghee made history by winning best performance by an Actor in a Musical for Some Like It Hot.
Oscar winner and Tony nominee Ariana DeBose hosted the ceremony. Tony Awards 2023 was held amid the ongoing writers’ strike. The organisers, in fact, made a deal with the WGA. The show proceeded without a script as a concession to the guild, which subsequently promised not to picket the event.
About the winners…
Kimberly Akimbo is a small-scale show about a teenage girl coping with a life-shortening genetic condition and a comically dysfunctional family. She won the coveted Tony Award for best musical Sunday Night. Jodie Comer won the best actress in a play award for the role of a defence attorney Tessa in the one-woman tour-de-force. She becomes a victim of sexual assault in Prima Facie.
Parade, in fact, tells the true story of the lynching of a falsely accused Jewish man in 1913. It evidently, tells the story of a pencil factory manager who was murdered by a mob. On similar lines, Leopoldstadt,” centres on the destructive toll of antisemitism on a family of Viennese Jews. It also looks into the false promise of assimilation.
The Tony Awards
The Antoinette Perry Award for Excellence in Broadway Theatre, commonly known as the Tony Award, recognises excellence in live Broadway theatre. Theatre producer and director Brock Pemberton founded the awards. The award is named after Antoinette Perry, an actress, director, producer, and the dynamic wartime leader of the American Theatre Wing. The awards are given for Broadway productions and performances.