NEW YORK (AP) — The best new play trophy at Sunday's Tony Awards went to “Purpose,” Branden Jacobs-Jenkins’ drawing-room drama about an accomplished Black family exposing hypocrisy and pressures during a snowed-in gathering.
It caps a remarkable year for Jacobs-Jenkins, who in addition to winning back-to-back Tonys — his “Appropriate” won best play revival in 2024 — earned the Pulitzer Prize for “Purpose.” (That win came the day of the Met Gala, where he served on the host committee.) Jacobs-Jenkins becomes the first Black playwright to win for best new play since August Wilson took home the trophy in 1987 for “Fences.” He urged Tony viewers to support regional theaters.
Kara Young — the first Black female actor to be nominated for a Tony Award in four consecutive years — became the first Black person to win two Tonys consecutively with the featured actress in a play trophy for her work in “Purpose.” Young thanked her parents, Jacobs-Jenkins, her cast and director Phylicia Rashad.
“Theater is a sacred space that we have to honor and treasure, and it makes us united,” she said.
Sarah Snook took home the trophy for leading actress in a play for her tireless work in “The Picture of Dorian Gray,” where she plays all 26 roles.
“I don’t feel alone any night that I do this show,” Snook said, dismissing the idea of her play as a one-woman show. “There are so many people onstage making it work and behind the stage making it work.”
Francis Jue won best actor in a featured role in a play for his work in a revival of “Yellow Face.” He said he was gifted his tuxedo from another Asian actor who wanted him to wear it to the Tonys.
“I’m only here because of the encouragement and inspiration of generations of wonderful deserving Asian artists who came before me,” he said. “To those who don’t feel seen,” he added. “I see you.”
Jak Malone won best actor in a featured role in a musical for the British import “Operation Mincemeat: A New Musical,” playing a woman every performance. He hoped his win could be a powerful advocacy for trans rights.
“Eureka Day,” Jonathan Spector’s social satire about well-meaning liberals debating a school’s vaccine policy, won the best play revival trophy. It made its off-Broadway debut in 2019.
The original cast of “Hamilton,” including creator Lin-Manuel Miranda, did a victory lap all dressed in black to mark the show's 10th anniversary on Broadway, with a medley including “My Shot,” “The Schuyler Sisters,” “History Has Its Eyes on You” and “The Room Where It Happens.”
The host with the most
First-time host Cynthia Erivo kicked off the show from her dressing room in Radio City Music Hall, unsure of her opening number as the stage manager urged her to get to the stage. As she made her way through the backstage warren, she ran into various people offering advice until she reached Oprah Winfrey, who advised, “The only thing you need to do is just be yourself.” Erivo then appeared at the stage in a red, spangly gown with white accents, hip cocked, as she launched into the slow-burning original song “Sometimes All You Need Is a Song,” written by Marc Shaiman, Scott Wittman, Benj Pasek and Justin Paul.
Initially alone with just a pianist, Erivo’s soaring voice was soon joined by dozens of members of the Broadway Inspirational Voices choir, all dressed in white, making her look like a powerful strawberry in a bowl of whipped cream.
In her opening comments, she singled out first-time nominees Louis McCartney, Sadie Sink, Cole Escola and “an up-and-comer that I think you’re going to really be hearing quite a bit about — George Clooney.”
She noted that the 2024-2025 season took in $1.9 billion, making it the highest-grossing season ever and signaling that Broadway has finally emerged from the COVID-19 blues.
“Broadway is officially back,” Erivo said. “Provided we don’t run out of cast members from ‘Succession,’” a nod to appearances this season by former co-stars Snook and Kieran Culkin and last season by Jeremy Strong.
She and Sara Bareilles dueted for a moving in memoriam section, singing “The Sun Will Come Out” from “Annie,” and honoring its composer Charles Strouse as well as George Wendt, Richard Chamberlain, Athol Fugard,Joan Plowright, Quincy Jones, Linda Lavin, James Earl Jones and Gavin Creel.
Pre-show results
“Buena Vista Social Club” and “Maybe Happy Ending” built up early heads of steam at the pre-show, well before the main event had even started. The best book and best score awards went to “Maybe Happy Ending,” with lyrics written by Hue Park and music composed by Will Aronson. Its director, Michael Arden, won — “Happy Pride!” he said — and it also picked up best scenic design of a musical.
Justin Peck and Patricia Delgado won for choreographing “Buena Vista Social Club” and Peck noted a song from the renowned original album was played at their wedding. The musical takes its inspiration from Wim Wenders’ 1999 Oscar-nominated documentary on the making of the Cuban album.
Best costumes in a play went to Marg Hornwell for “The Picture of Dorian Gray,” while “Death Becomes Her” won the musical counterpart, a win for Paul Tazewell in a year where he also became the first Black man to win an Oscar for designing costumes, for “Wicked.”
“I have dressed so many of you out there,” he said from the podium.
Harvey Fierstein, the four-time Tony winner behind “Torch Song Trilogy” and “Kinky Boots,” was honored with a lifetime achievement Tony and became emotional during his speech: “There is nothing quite like bathing in the applause of a curtain call, but when I bow, I bow to the audience, with gratitude, knowing that without them I might as well be lip-syncing showtunes in my bedroom mirror. And so I dedicate this award to the people in the dark.”
This season on Broadway
Broadway buzz is usually reserved for musicals but this year the plays — powered by A-list talent like Snook and Clooney — have driven the conversation. There were two Pulitzer winners — 2024 awardee “English” and “Purpose” from 2025 — but perhaps one of the season's biggest surprises was “Oh, Mary!,” Escola’s irreverent, raunchy, gleefully deranged revisionist history centered on Mary Todd Lincoln.
Sam Pinkleton won best director for “Oh, Mary!” and thanked Escola, saying he taught him, "Do what you love, not what you think people want to see.”
On the musical side, three options seem to be in the mix for the top prize: “Maybe Happy Ending,” the rom-com about a pair of androids; “Dead Outlaw,” about an alcoholic drifter whose embalmed body becomes a prized possession for half a century; and “Death Becomes Her,” the musical satire about longtime frenemies who drink a magic potion for eternal youth and beauty. “Maybe Happy Ending,” “Death Becomes Her” and fellow musical nominee, “Buena Vista Social Club,” led nominations going into the night with 10 apiece.
Broadway this season saw a burst in alt-rock and the emergence of stories of young people for young people, including “John Proctor is the Villain” and a “Romeo + Juliet” pitched to Generation Z and millennials.
___
For more coverage of the 2025 Tony Awards, visit https://apnews.com/hub/tony-awards.
Mark Kennedy, The Associated Press
