Best of Tony Awards 2019

Andre De Shields accepts the award for best performance by an actor in a featured role in a musical for ‘Hadestown.’

During the 73rd Tony Awards in New York, James Corden, the host, kicked off the show with a boisterous, colourful number that highlighted the importance of Broadway in the age of streaming services. 

It was a day of victory for Hadestown, a folk opera about a young couple’s dark trek to the underworld. The show won eight honours, including the top prize for best musical.

Rachel Chavkin, the only woman to helm a new Broadway musical this season, won the Tony for best director of a musical for Hadestown. She became only the tenth woman to win as director of either a play or a musical on Broadway and told the crowd she was sorry to be such a rarity. Furthermore, Andre De Shields won the award for best performance by an actor in a featured role in a musical for Hadestown.

Elaine May accepts the award for best performance by an actress in a leading role in a play for ‘The Waverly Gallery.’

The Ferryman, British playwright Jez Butterworth’s wrenching examination of a family during the sectarian violence in Northern Ireland in the 1980s, won the best play prize and the best director award for Sam Mendes. Bryan Cranston won his second Tony as the unhinged television anchor in Network, a stage adaptation of the 1976 film.

Elaine May was named best actress in a play for her moving performance as a mentally declining woman in The Waverly Gallery.

The best actor in a musical Tony went to Santino Fontana for Tootsie, the hit show based on the 1982 film, while Stephanie J Block took home the lead actress award for playing musical icon Cher in The Cher Show.

The supporting musical actress Tony went to Ali Stroker for a reinvented staging of the classic musical, Oklahoma!, which also won the award for best revival of a musical. The award for supporting actress in a play went to Celia Keenan-Bolger, as the child Scout in To Kill a Mockingbird, while English actor Bertie Carvel won his first Tony as media mogul Rupert Murdoch making his foray into newspaper publishing in Ink.

Rachel Chavkin with the award for best director of a musical for ‘Hadestown.’

Veteran stage actor Rosemary Harris and playwright Terrence McNally were presented with special Tony awards for lifetime achievement in theatre.