Is there a Tony Awards-shaped hole in your heart this month? One so big even a singalong screening of the movie Grease won’t fill it? Here are ten of our favourite Tony performances from recent years to lift your spirits and celebrate Broadway’s finest:
10. 2019 – Frozen
Broadway’s first Queen Elsa of Arendelle, Cassie Levy, pulled off a miracle here. Faced with performing a song that every parent in the millions-strong, worldwide audience would be sick to death of, she absolutely nails those infamously tricky high notes with confidence and grace, cementing ‘Let It Go’ as the anthem it always has been. As with all the performers on this list, the feat is made even more impressive by the fact she did this eight times a week on Broadway.
9. 2018 – The Band’s Visit
Where most shows use the Tony Awards to wow the audience and potential ticket-buyers with their flashiest production numbers, The Band’s Visit took a different approach. There is a gorgeous reserve to Katrina Lenk’s performance of ‘Omar Sharif’ that invites us to lean in and enter the world of the musical. Once we’re in, the sublime subtleties of the acting and lighting ensure we never want to leave.
8. 2017 – Natasha, Pierre, and the Great Comet of 1812
All Tony Awards performers aim to take the audience on a journey during their short timeslot, but this one is a voyage worthy of Odysseus. Josh Groban, Denée Benton, Lucas Steele, and (almost literally) countless other super-talented folks take us from an introspective ballad to pure chaos in under five minutes. Bonus: That’s composer/lyricist/bookwriter and occasional Pierre, Dave Malloy, being pulled on stage to play piano.
7. 2017 – Dear Evan Hansen
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h9rf5wFq3zk
As incandescent with rage as every right-minded person* was at Dear Evan Hansen beating The Great Comet to the major awards, nobody could have any problem with Ben Platt’s powerful Tony Awards performance of the heart-breaking ‘Waving Through a Window’. It’s easy to see why his commitment and charisma – combined with the show’s catchy score – elevated this musical to Hamilton-rivalling levels of popularity.
*(possibly just me)
6. 2019 – Oklahoma!
A great joy of the Tony Awards is seeing what new approaches are being taken to the classics in the ‘revivals’ category. Everybody knows Oklahoma!, but Daniel Fish’s 2019 production’s stripped-back and energetic production made the show feel absolutely fresh. It is truly impossible not to fall in love with Ali Stroker’s sprightly take on Ado Annie.
5. 2016 – Hamilton
As everybody predicted, the mega-smash hip-hop musical about America’s first treasury secretary, Hamilton, dominated the 70th Annual Tony Awards. One of the highlights of the evening was seeing the original cast – including writer/composer Lin-Manuel Miranda – perform a stunning rendition of ‘The Battle of Yorktown’, sensitively re-choreographed to remove the prop guns after the tragedy of the previous night’s Pulse nightclub massacre.
4. 2014 – Hedwig and the Angry Inch
There can’t be many performers as comfortable on the Tony Awards’ stage as Neil Patrick Harris. Between 2009 and 2013, his effortless charm and mastery of enormous musical numbers cemented him as one of the best hosts the awards ceremony has ever had. So, why not put on a pair of heels and flirt outrageously with the audience of showbiz royalty? He’s earned it.
3. 2016 – The Color Purple
Pour yourself a nice drink, take a seat in your favourite chair, put your phone on silent, and just let this one transport you. Danielle Brookes and Heather Headley are stunning, but the highlight is Cynthia Erivo, who does her fellow Brits proud and shows Broadway how it’s done.
2. 2015 – Fun Home
It takes a special performer to hold the attention of a packed theatre. The 11-year-old Sydney Lucas is utterly riveting in both her singing and her acting. She brings the bustling auditorium to a temporary silence for this song of a young person experiencing a rare moment of affinity in a lonely world.
1. 2019 – Hadestown
For those who had been following Anaïs Mitchell’s folk-opera Hadestown since its early days of being performed in pub backrooms, the 73rd Annual Tony Awards Ceremony was a moment of vindication. That such a strange yet beautiful show could eventually find its audience and win eight Tony Awards should give us great hope. There is an exciting future for musical theatre, and it will be made all the better by nurturing new voices, wherever they come from.
Ian Bowkett
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