JENNIFER HUDSON SNAGGED HER FIRST TONY AWARD
“A Strange Loop,” an irreverent, sexually frank work about Blackness and queerness took home the best new musical crown at the Tony Awards on Sunday, as voters celebrated Broadway’s most racially diverse season by choosing an envelope-pushing Black voice.
“A Strange Loop” beat “MJ,” a bio musical of the King of Pop’s biggest hits, for the top prize, although the other Jackson musical nabbed four Tony Awards including for best choreography. Myles Frost moonwalked away with the award for best lead actor in a musical for playing Michael Jackson, becoming the youngest solo winner in that category. “Mom, I made it!” he said
“MJ” represents the 22-year-old Frost’s Broadway debut as he plays Jackson with a high, whispery voice, a Lady Diana-like coquettishness and a fierce embrace of Jackson’s iconic dancing and singing style. “Heal the world,” Frost said from the stage, channeling Jackson.
Jennifer Hudson made history! The actress and singer snagged her first Tony Award on Sunday evening, when A Strange Loop won best musical. Hudson served as a producer on the musical.
According to People Magazine, It was the final trophy she needed to complete the EGOT quartet of having won an Emmy, Grammy, Oscar and Tony. Hudson won her first of the big four awards, an Oscar, for her role in 2007’s Dreamgirls. She is a two-time Grammy winner, having nabbed her first one for her 2009 self-titled album.
“I got a dog and named it Oscar, and then I won my Oscar. And then I got a dog and named it Grammy, and then I won my Grammy,” she said at the time. “So I think I should get some dogs and name them Emmy and Tony — and it’ll give me good luck, and I’ll win. [They’re] like my good luck charms.”
Some of the show highlights included the massive cast of “The Music Man” filling the massive Radio City stage with “Seventy-Six Trombones,” as well as Prince Jackson and Paris Jackson introducing the show about their father before the “MJ” cast danced to an energetic “Smooth Criminal.”
Billy Crystal taught the crowd “Yiddish scatting,” and the original cast of the 2007 Tony-winning musical “Spring Awakening” — including Lea Michele and Jonathan Groff — reunited for a performance.
Many acceptance speeches thanked the audiences for braving spikes in COVID-19 to come to see shows, and Marsha Gay Harden cheered 150 safety officers invited as guests to the Tonys.
Earlier, Darren Criss and Julianne Hough kicked off the four-hour awards, handing out mostly design awards. Criss opened the telecast with the original song, “Set the Stage,” as he and Hough energetically danced up ladders, on laundry hampers and in sliding theater seats to celebrate the artists who keep theater alive.
The first award of the night — for best score — went to “Six: The Musical,” with music and lyrics by Toby Marlow and Lucy Moss. Marlow became the first out nonbinary composer-lyricist to win a Tony. “Six: The Musical” also picked up the award for best costumes for a musical.
The season — with 34 new productions — represents a full return to theaters after nearly two years of a pandemic-mandated shutdown. At the last Tonys nine months ago, the winners were pulled from just 18 eligible plays and musicals, and many of the competitive categories were depleted.
Sondheim, the iconic composer who died in late 2021, was honored in a special segment by Bernadette Peters singing his song “Children Will Listen.” Angela Lansbury, who was honored with a lifetime achievement Tony, wasn’t present so her “Sweeney Todd” co-star Len Cariou accepted on her behalf.
