2023 Tony Awards: The best moments from the history-making, unscripted show

As the old showbiz adage goes, the show must go on. And the 76th Tony Awards, arguably Broadway’s biggest night, did indeed proceed Sunday — albeit unscripted — despite an ongoing writers’ strike that hung a question mark over the event for weeks.

The awards show, hosted by Oscar-winner Ariana DeBose at New York City’s United Palace, was a history-making affair, shining a spotlight on a Broadway community still recovering from the COVID-19 pandemic.

“Leopoldstadt,” by legendary British playwright Tom Stoppard, was named best play, winning over a crowded field that included “Ain’t No Mo,” “The Cost of Living,” “Between Riverside and Crazy” and “Fat Ham,” the latter three of which all earned a Pulitzer Prize for Drama.

The generation-spanning Holocaust drama was inspired by the 85-year-old playwright’s discovery of his Jewish roots later in life. The production, which is slated to close on Broadway next month, was supposed to play in Toronto before its Broadway bow. That Canadian run, however, was cancelled due to the pandemic.

In addition to the award for best play, “Leopoldstadt” also collected trophies for direction of a play (Patrick Marber), featured actor (Brandon Uranowitz) and costumes (Brigitte Reiffenstuel).

“Kimberly Akimbo,” the sweet yet tender show about a New Jersey teen who ages rapidly due to a rare genetic disorder, was the night’s winningest production. It was crowned best musical and also earned awards for best score (David Lindsay-Abaire and Jeanine Tesori), leading actress (Victoria Clark, earning the second Tony of her career) and featured actress (Bonnie Milligan).

Lindsay-Abaire also won the prize for best book, beating out Canadian writer David West Read, who penned “& Juliet,” the crowd-pleasing jukebox musical that landed in Toronto last summer.

This year’s prizes were spread widely. Among the nominated plays and musicals, no production received more than five awards. In all, the 26 competitive awards were handed out to a dozen shows.

“Life of Pi,” a play based on the bestselling novel by Canadian author Yann Martel, won three Tonys for scenic design (Tim Hatley and Andrzej Goulding), lighting (Tim Lutkin) and sound (Carolyn Downing). But despite winning the Olivier Award for best new play last year, the production wasn’t nominated for that same accolade on Broadway.

“Some Like it Hot,” a musical adaptation of the 1959 Marilyn Monroe film of the same name, headed into Tonys with a leading 13 nominations. It walked out at the end of the evening with four wins, including for best choreography (Casey Nicholaw), costumes (Gregg Barnes) and orchestrations (Charlie Rosen and Bryan Carter).

J. Harrison Ghee made history with Alex Newell, who both became the first openly non-binary people to win Tony Awards for acting.

“For every trans, non-binary, gender nonconforming human, whoever was told you couldn’t be seen, this is for you,” said Ghee, who earned the award for their leading performance in the splashy musical “Some Like it Hot.”

“Thank you for the humanity. Thank you for my incredible company who raised me up every single day,” they continued.

About 40 minutes earlier, Newell picked up a featured actor Tony for their roof-raising performance in the corn musical “Shucked.”

“Thank you for seeing me, Broadway,” said Newell, who plays Lulu, an independent, don’t-need-no-man whiskey distiller. “I should not be up here as a queer, non-binary, fat, Black little baby from Massachusetts. And to anyone that thinks that they can’t do it, I’m going to look you dead in your face that you can do anything you put your mind to.”

In the play categories, “Killing Eve” star Jodie Comer won the best leading actress Tony for her lauded performance in the one-woman play “Prima Facie.”

Sean Hayes, meanwhile, garnered a leading actor award for his turn in “Good Night, Oscar,” in which he plays American concert pianist Oscar Levant.

“This has got to be the first time an Oscar won a Tony,” Hayes joked.

Among the revivals, “Parade” — a dramatization of the trial, imprisonment and lynching of Jewish-American Leo Frank — won the Tony for best musical revival, beating “Camelot” and two Stephen Sondheim musicals, “Into the Woods” and “Sweeney Todd.”

“‘Parade’ tells the story of a life that was cut short at the hands of the belief that one group of people is more valuable than another and that they might be more deserving of justice,” said director Michael Arden, who also won a Tony for his staging of the 1998 musical. “This is a belief that is the core of antisemitism, white supremacy, homophobia and transphobia and intolerance of any kind. We must come together. We must battle this.”

Suzan-Lori Parks’ “Topdog/Underdog,” a play about sibling rivalry, inequality and society’s false promises, nabbed the Tony for best revival of a play. A new production of the Pulitzer Prize-winning play will open in Toronto later this year, produced by Canadian Stage.

In addition to the competitive awards, two Broadway icons were bestowed with a special Tony Award for lifetime achievement in a pre-show telecast hosted by Skylar Astin and Julianne Hough.

John Kander, the 96-year-old composer behind such landmark shows as “Chicago,” “Cabaret” and “The Scottsboro Boys” alongside Fred Ebb, was presented the award by Lin-Manuel Miranda, his collaborator on the 2023 best musical nominee “New York, New York.”

Kander thanked his parents, his husband Albert Stephenson and music, which “has stayed my friend through my entire life and has promised to stick with me until the end.”

Jennifer Grey handed her father, “Cabaret” star Joel Grey, the other lifetime achievement Tony. “Being recognized by the theatre community is such a gift because it’s always been, next to my children, my greatest, most enduring love,” the actor said.

DeBose, hosting the Tonys for the second year in a row, persuasively led a suprsingly breezy and brisk show, chock-full of performances but short of the usual scripted banter that typically bogs down the show.

DeBose’s dance-filled opening number began with a shot of a blank script backstage, a nod to the Writers Guild of America (WGA) strike. Later, she explained how the show was allowed to proceed because of a compromise between the WGA and Tony organizers, which stipulated that the awards show had to be conducted unscripted.

“So to anyone who may have thought that last year was a bit unhinged, to them, I say, ‘Darlings, buckle up.’” DeBose warned the audience early on.

That the ceremony was allowed to continue is no doubt a win for the Broadway community, which has still yet to return to pre-pandemic levels of attendance. The 2022-2023 season, the first full season since the pandemic, saw 12.28 million audience members, still notably down from 14.77 million in the 2018-2019 season.

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