Tony Award winner Ben Platt in Dear Evan Hansen. Picture: Matthew Murphy
Dear Evan Hansen, an emotion-clutching musical about teenage outsiders, grabbed the spotlight at the 2017 Tony Awards. It won a half-dozen trophies, including Best Musical, while its 23-year-old star Ben Platt took home honours for Leading Actor in a Musical.
On the distaff side, Bette Midler, as was generally predicted, won Best Actress in a Musical for her box office-blockbuster turn in Hello, Dolly!, which grabbed a total of four wins, including Best Musical Revival. The show’s other nods went to featured actor Gavin Creel and costume designer Santo Loquasto.
The other Dear Evan Hansen awards went to featured actress Rachel Bay Jones; the score by Benj Pasek and Justin Paul; the book by Steven Levenson, and the orchestrations by Alex Lacamoire.
In other musical awards, Natasha, Pierre and the Great Comet of 1812, which claimed the greatest amount of nominations with 12, ended the evening with two design awards. They were for Mimi Lien’s sets and Bradley King’s lighting.
Come from Away, which was seen by Broadway oracles as running head-to-head with Dear Evan Hansen for Best Musical, had to content itself with one victory, going to its director Christopher Ashley.
Another close race was believed to be between Evan Hansen’s Platt and Groundhog Day’s Andy Karl for Best Lead Actor. Karl’s heroic stamina in continuing to perform despite a torn knee ligament, it was thought, could well win him a host of votes. As it turned out, however, Groundhog Day, which garnered four nominations, wound up with nary an award.
Rounding out the musical award-winners was Andy Blankenbuehler’s choreography, the single award for Bandstand.
Bette Midler won the Best Actress in a Musical Tony Award for Hello, Dolly! Picture: Julieta Cervantes
Also of interest to musical theatre devotees was the presentation of the non-competitive Isabelle Stevenson Award for humanitarian work. It went to Baayork Lee, a director and choreographer who also created the role of Connie in A Chorus Line, for her founding of the National Asian Artists Project, showcasing and developing the work of Asian-American theatre artists.
Midler, as expected, did not perform at the Tony Awards. Hello, Dolly! was represented performance-wise by her co-star, David Hyde Pierce, who sang his before-the-scene-curtain solo, ‘Penny in My Pocket’, which was dropped from the original production. However, Midler did present the Tony for Leading Actress in a Play.
And while Evan Hansen may have crowded the awards field, it was Midler who dominated the microphone with her epic acceptance speech for her own award.
As the orchestra started up and then continued to doggedly play its warning cut-off music, the lady kept on talking, advising the band at one point to shut “the crap” up. And she continued to talk on, even after the orchestra ran out of cut-off music, apparently lauding just about everybody she could think of involved with the show, including the original Dolly, Carol Channing. It was one of those moments that can make the endurance test of an award show suddenly riveting, delightfully so.
Ron Cohen
Readers may also be interested in:
Drama Desk Awards – top honours for Dolly, Midler and Come from Away – News
Hello, Dolly! – Sam S. Shubert Theatre, New York – Review
Come from Away – Gerald Schoenfeld Theatre, New York – Review
Composer Stephen Flaherty on bringing Anastasia to Broadway – Interview
SHARE THIS POST:
Comments are closed.