This Year’s Tony Awards Celebrated Women In An Epic And Historic Way

This year's 77th Tony Awards was a jarring time for female directors. Out of a total of ten leadership candidate positions, a record seven were held by women. Tony-winning director Danya Taymor the Outsidersshe became the sixth woman to win a Tony Award for directing a musical.

The historic moments continued. Kara Young, who won a Tony Award for her performance in Purlie victorious, is the first black actor to be nominated three years in a row. In the press room he spoke about the playwrights, directors and artists who have shaped him. Young also talked about honoring the legacy of Ossie Davis who wrote Purlie victorious and Ruby Dee, who originated the role more than six decades ago.

“This is about continuing the legacy of Ossie Davis and Ruby Dee and their commitment to changing the American tapestry,” Young told a crowd of reporters in the Tony press room. “I've been pushed a lot. After all, 63 years ago they weren't honored for their work. It's a recognition of all the people who came before me who were never recognized for their work. I'm very grateful to be even the smallest part of honoring his legacy.”

Costume designer Dede Ayite, winner of Jaja African Hair Braid she was the first black woman to win a Tony for Best Costume Design for a Play. And Nikiya Mathis received a special Tony Award for wig and hair design Jaja African Hair Braid. In fact, Mathis is the first hair and wig designer to receive a Tony for a single show.

Wig and hair design for the theater, which is not a normal Tony category, requires great artistry. “I don't think people understand everything that goes into wig design,” says Mathis. “[Just like costume designers do], you have to build the underlying foundation. You take measurements, create a mold of the head and put on a lace base. There's intricate stitching and detailing.” Also, the hair is added one at a time and has to be sourced. “Do we use European or Asian hair?” says Mathis. “We have to know where we're going to put the curly curly hair. It's such a complicated process.”

The night also broke records as all the actors who won in their categories won for the first time. Maleah Joi Moon, 21, who won Hell's Kitchen, not only was she making her Broadway debut, but the show also marks her first professional work. “You saw something in me a few years ago,” Moon said in her acceptance speech to Alicia Keys and the show's creative team and cast. “And you fed this thing ever since.”

Moon's co-star, Broadway veteran Kecia Lewis, made her debut Dreamgirls in 1984 and was celebrating his first Tony. “This is extremely significant, mainly because it is 40 years since I walked into the Imperial theater doing Dreamgirls when I was 18, and in two weeks I'll be 59,” Lewis said in the press room. “But it means a lot of work, a lot of tears, a lot of desire to perform.”

Lewis, who raised her son as a single mother, shared that her strong sense of faith inspired her to keep going. “Faith has been everything. I didn't have it when I started,” Lewis said. “When I started at 18, it was about, I'm going to be a star, I'm going to be fierce, I'm going to look cute and I'm going to win awards. And over the years, as life goes on, you discover that faith is literally all you are. have.”

Daniel Radcliffe, who won a Tony for With joy we follow each other was asked about winning a Tony on Father's Day now that he's the father of a son born in April 2023. “It's been an emotional day,” said Radcliffe, who received a “sweet” message at 9 a.m. that morning about being a father. “It was right after rehearsing for the [Tony] performance and I texted him back: “What are you doing to me? I can't cry anymore.”

It was also meaningful to have his parents with him at the Tony ceremony. “My dad is a big part of me listening to all the music I listen to,” Radcliffe said. “He listens to T. Rex and David Bowie, but also Chicago i cabaret. I grew up listening company and all the Sondheim show for him So it's great to get that today.”

Tony winner Jonathan Groff, which also stars Radcliffe and Lindsay Mendez With joy we follow each other, shared how he is able to get audiences to root for his character, Franklin Shepard. Even when he doesn't make good choices and isn't nice to the people he loves.

“Some people will say, 'all her bad choices,' and I honestly say, 'what bad choices?'” says Groff, who credits director Maria Friedman for her performance.

“It is no mistake that a female director is needed to find the humanity and love that is inside all these characters. Not to be cynical… To focus on friendships and relationships. She helped me learn that she is a person who lost touch with music… her passion. This person is lost. This person is not bad,” Groff says. “When we're in the first scene of the show, which is the end of the story, and some of the things we say to each other are pretty clear, it comes from a deep place of pain and disconnection, in contrast. only on the surface of evil. As Beyoncé says, “Be the victim and the villain at the same time.” He's trying to find the victim within the villain.”

In her opening speech, Shaina Taub, who won two Tonys, Best Book of a Musical and Best Original Score, for sigh, he thanked his mother for teaching him the power of creativity. In the press room afterward, Taub recounted how her mother, a former elementary school teacher, bound blank storybooks for Taub and her sister.

“She would tell us, 'fill them with your stories, write your own stories.' We were always doing some kind of creative art project at home, just for fun. And he also championed my education,” says Taub, the musical Enough highlights the women who fought for the right to vote. “I was a very passionate and avid reader. And I would talk to my teachers to get me the right books. She was always in my corner.”

Taub's mother always nurtured his love of creation. “I've loved theater since I was little, and she never made me feel like I was crazy or stupid or unreal. She never judged me or was critical of me,” says Taub, who made history as the first woman to win the two awards by herself. “And it's only as an adult that I've realized how rare that is in a mother. What kept me going is that I grew up with someone who believed in me before I believed in myself.”

That sense of community seemed to be most important to many artists, including Alex Edelman, who received a special Tony for his solo show, Just for Us. Adam Brace, Edelman's collaborator, best friend and director, died of complications from a stroke at the age of 43 weeks before Just for Us opened on Broadway. “My best friend died and left this huge hole and everyone else rushed to fill it,” Edelman says. “No one will ever see it except me. The amount of people that kept showing up was the craziest thing.”

After winning his Tony for Appropriate Sarah Paulson arrived in the press room still in shock. “I don't feel like I'm in my body right now. I just can't believe it. I can't believe it,” Paulson said. “This is a childhood dream for me… So it's really hard to know this moment in front of a lot of people without feeling like I'm exposing my insides to you.”

In her Tony speech, Paulson waxed poetic about the moment she performed in the same theater where she was so mesmerized watching Janet McTeer perform. A doll house in 1997.

“And some nights when I'm backstage I think about her indelible impact. I think about the walls of the theaters in this magical city that have the impact of each and every one of you in this room, and everyone who came before,” Paulson said. “And I think how lucky these walls of to bear witness to the relentless interrogation of human experience that we strive to explore every night for each other: to turn to each other in the hope of finding some shared path to the truth about being alive. This is the heart and soul of what we do, and I am very honored to be among you.”