Matt Tannini (0:01)

Welcome to TODAY on Broadway for Monday, June 9, 2025. I'm Broadway Radio's Matt Tannini and I'm coming to you just Shortly after the 2025 78th Annual Tony Awards have ended. And oh, boy, what a broadcast we were treated to on CBS on Sunday night. It was not necessarily one that I would say was filled with a ton of surprises, although there, there were some. There was also some great joke writing for Cynthia Eriva, who I thought proved to be a very, very good host. Not a ton of bits, not a ton of banter, but everything that they did really worked. I think. To me, this was one of the strongest Tony Awards that we've had in a long time and I'm really excited to dive into it. I'm assuming that if you're listening to this episode, chances are you watched and you know who all the winners are. But I'm going to go through them very quickly nonetheless. And if I have any commentary to throw in there, I will absolutely do that. I will say, though, as I am looking at our bracket pool, our predictions pool, I did come in first, but I tied with two people. So if you are acting Cat 3 or Chris Heughan, email me@mattroadwayradio.com and I don't know, show me a screenshot of your picture pics or something that proves that you are who you say you are and then send me your address. I don't know what I'm going to do because I only put together one care package, so I'm going to have to kind of come up with an alternative to get two care packages. But we did have two people tie with me for first place. I had 23 of 26 correct. I will say, though, that two of the three that I missed were my official once in those category and the other one, which is the first award that I talk about here in a second. If you listen to the Wish one Will episode, I said I either want purpose or John Proctor is the villain to win. But Brandon Jacobs Jenkins won last year for appropriate. So I'm gonna go with Kimberly Bellflower for John Proctor's the villain. And of course Purpose won. So I'm counting that as two and a half of the three that I got wrong were ones that I officially said I wanted but nonetheless felt pretty good about that. But as I'm looking through the bracket like a lot of people did very well. So I think it was just one of those things where there was a lot of pretty safe bets in the Tony predictions category. Here. So let's dive into these awards and as I said, I'll go through these quickly because I'm pretty sure that you watched just as I did. But Best Play, as I said, a bit of an upset did not go to oh Mary, but it did go to Purpose. I think this probably comes down to the fact that there was more going on, there was more being said in Purpose than there was in oh Mary. While oh Mary is exquisitely crafted and outrageously funny, the fact that at its core it is just trying to make you laugh is probably what actually hurt because we saw in other categories it do very, very well. Purpose certainly had some things to say, as did John Proctor is the villain, which is kind of why I thought that those two had a shot. But I didn't think they had a very good shot because I had full confidence in Omari. But Jesse Green's New York Times article actually said it was a pretty close to a three way tie and he ended up being correct that Purpose was the one to win Best Musical. No surprise there. Maybe Happy Ending. It won in many, many categories, which we'll talk about. Best revival of a play went to Eureka Day and best revival of a musical was Sunset Boulevard. Those other three weren't really surprises. Those were the betting favorites in all of those categories. The same thing happened in three of the four lead acting categories as well. Cola Scola won for O Mary, Sarah Snook won for Picture of Dorian Gray and Darren Criss one for maybe Happy Ending. Those three were all expected, but as we got into the best performance by leading actress in a musical, it was certainly down to the wire between Megan hilty and Audra McDonald. I had thought that Audra McDonald had pulled ahead and that seemed to be the consensus for everybody. I of course was happy that I was wrong because I did want Nicole Scherzinger to win. But to be honest with you, after Rose's turn I was like oh, that is a much different version of that song than I saw shortly after opening. And I understood what people had been saying about how the show and Audra's performance specifically had grown quite a bit in the intervening months from when people had first been seeing it on Broadway. But nonetheless thrilled for all of those actors. And I do think it is important to point out that both of the winners in the lead performance in musical categories are of Filipino descent. So that is very cool and something that deserves to be celebrated. Also, of course, history made with Kola Scola winning as the first out non binary actor to win for A play. Obviously the previous ones with Alex Newell and Jay Harrison G were in musical categories, so this is another thing that deserves to be celebrated. Moving on to the featured performer categories as well. Again, I think probably three of these were the favorites, those being Carrie Young, who I did think that Jessica Hecht had a shot there, but Carrie Young winning for Purpose, Jack Malone for Operation Mincemeat and Natalie Venetia Belcone for Buena Vista Social Club. The one surprise, even though I did predict this one, was Francis Zhu and he was coming neck and neck with Conrad Rick Amora. So it was certainly a toss up between those two, but really lovely to see Francis Zhu, a stalwart of the theater community, be recognized like this. That was incredibly special. Moving on to the best direction categories, Michael Arden won for maybe Happy Ending in a Musical. Sam Pinkleton won for best director of a play, but both of those mostly expected, although I do think Jamie Lloyd and even Kip Williams and Donya Taymor had chances to win there as well. Maybe Happy Endings. Will Aronson and Hugh park won both best book and best original score, something that of course, Shana Talb did last year for Suffs. Then running through the design categories we had best seen design of a play went to Miriam Bether in 59 productions free for Stranger Things, the First Shadow, Dane Laffery and George Reeve for maybe Happy Ending One in that category for a musical, best costume design of a play. This is the other one where I got wrong, but my want one with Marg Horwell for the Picture of Dorian Gray. Best costume design of a musical went to Paul Tazewell, who has now won an Oscar and a Tony in a matter of four months for Death Becomes her this time. Best lighting design of a play went to John Clark for Stranger Things, the first Shadow and Jack Knowles for best lighting design of a musical. For Sunset Boulevard. Best sound design of a play, Paul R. Diddy for Stranger Things, the first Shadow and best sound design of a musical went to Jonathan Dean's for Buena Vista Social Club. Best choreography went to Patricia Delgado and Justin Peck for Buena Vista Social Club. And best orchestrations went to Marco Paguilla for Brand of the Social Club. Also like Nicole and Darren of Filipino descent. So those are the winners. As I said, not a ton of surprises in there, but it was one that felt very satisfying. I thought that there was a good distribution of awards. You know, we got Buena Vista Social Club 14 Death Becomes Her 11 maybe Happy Ending 16 Sunset 13 Purpose 12 oh Mary 1 2, Stranger Things 1 3, Operation Mincemeat, 1 1, Eureka Day and Yellowface, both 1 1. So that's what 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 7, 8, 9, 10 different shows won Tony's on Sunday night. And I think that's incredibly appropriate for a season that I thought was a really, really good season. You know, as I look back on my notes for everything that I saw starting last summer up through just last month, yes, there are some things that I thought were very bad, but the vast majority of these things that I saw on Broadway were really good to great and then there were some that were just extraord ordinary. So I am very pleased to see that a number of shows received recognition and even those that that didn't win anything. The Dead Outlaws, the Hills of California, the Justin Times, the the Floyd Collins, the English, the Good Night and Good Luck Gypsy. Real Women have Curves. You know, all of those shows I still think got something out of being a part of the Tonys, obviously. Goodnight. Galec closed it today. But I think that this was a wonderful ceremony to look back on and to celebrate a wonderful season. All right, before we get into everything else that happened on Tony's Night, let's talk about our sponsor for this week, Cash App. Let's say that hypothetically, you or someone you know might have put together a Tony's Pool that may or may not involve some money or may or may not technically be legal in the traditional sense. And perhaps you ended up winning said pool and therefore are entitled to this hypothetical, certainly not realistic money. Because the people in this hypothetical pool don't all live in the same place. It's not like you can just go to their houses and collect the money in hand. So instead they're going to have to send it to you electronically. And while everybody has their own apps that they are used to, if you want to guarantee that you get your money as quickly and as painlessly as possible, I would recommend to this person, who may or may not actually be me in a hypothetical Tony's Pool, to send out individualized requests for said monies via Cash App. Cash App is safe, it's easy, and it's a fast way to send, receive and and transfer money to friends and family. And even if one of those derelict lakes in your Tony's pool doesn't already have a Cash App account, it is super easy to set up. You just have to enter your phone number or email address and some other basic information, but not your bank information that is not needed. So once they've downloaded The Cash app. They can send you the money and there is no waiting around for days. It is your money. You shouldn't have to wait for it. I know that I love using Cash app because it's fast, it's safe and honestly, it just makes your life so much less stressful. And if you might have theoretically won a Tony pool that had some money down on it, it makes your life a little bit richer as well. And for a limited time only, new Cash app users can use our exclusive code to earn some additional cash. For real. There's no catch. Just download Cash App and sign up. Use our exclusive referral code Broadway in your profile. Send $5 to a friend within 14 days days and you'll get $10 dropped right into your account. Terms apply. That's money. That's cashapp. So let's dive into the ceremony a little bit, starting with Tony Awards Act 1. This was a very, very snappy ceremony. There was not a lot of wasted cells based. There weren't any performances whatsoever. I thought Darren Criss and Rene Elise Goldsberry did a very nice job hosting, keeping things moving, a little bit of banter, but not very much. Just enough to make you go, haha, that was funny. And then they moved on to an award. They rocked through a lot of those awards and that was much appreciated. Of course, there were some really nice speeches there. I would be remiss, not to mention the Lifetime Achievement Award in Theater. Theater winner Harvey Fierstein gave a beautiful speech, as you would obviously expect him to. Similarly, the Isabel Stevenson Award winner Celia Keenan Bolger also gave a phenomenal speech, unsurprisingly talking quite a bit about her late friend Gavin Creel and pushing the Gavin Creel Fellowship that she helped launch last week. I will say that Gary Edwin Robinson, the head of the theater arts program at Boys and Girls High School in Brooklyn, gave a tremendous, tremendously moving speech for the Excellence in Theater Education Award. But also like, how is this man not doing voiceover work? When he got up there and he first started talking, it was, hello, my name is Gary Edwin Robinson. I was like, oh, he's doing a James Earl Jones voice. No, that was just his voice. And he was lovely and obviously heartfelt. And it is very clear to understand why his students love him and cherish him so much. As we got into the telecast. In itself a fun opening number. I like the opening number from Cynthia Erivo, obviously paying a little bit of homage to the backstage part of the walk in Sunset Boulevard. It was nice to see some people you might recognize back there as well. Alex Edelman, who was part of the writing team was there. Larry Owens was back there. Also, there's a guy named Tim Murray who had a fantastic TikTok series where he pitched himself as a writer for the Tony Awards. For Cynthia Erivo gave, gave like really funny, really bonkers bit ideas. I don't think any of them actually ended up being used, But I am 99% sure, because I don't really know Tim, that he was one of the people that talked to Cynthia throughout her walk. And I kind of jumped out of my seat, not for the. Not for the last time. We'll get to that later. And I thought that was really fun. I thought the opening number by Pascan, Paul and Shaman and Whitman was very good as well. And it really did just remind you, because she hasn't been on a stage like this in quite a while, that Cynthia Erivo is uber talented and can pretty much do anything. The one thing I haven't really seen her do, and maybe she's done a movie that I've. That I've missed, that I haven't seen is like, I think she's pretty dang fun funny. She's got that British dry humor. I'd like to see her do a comedy because I thought the writing was excellent and I thought her delivery was spot on pretty much every time. Whether it was the Jonathan Groff makes everybody wet joke or some of the stuff with Oprah later on. She delivered really funny, dry, sarcastic punchlines incredibly well. So I think that Cynthia really equated herself very, very well in this role. I don't know if she'll want to do it again. If her friend Ariana DeBose did it for three years. If Cynthia is going to want to do it for three years, who knows? But she was certainly excellent in that role. Some of the acceptance speeches were marvelous throughout, of course, Carrie Young, my favorite part of Carrie Young. Did she unclip her dress and leave the skirt in the chair? Is that. Did I see that right? I didn't rewind it, but that's what it looked like to me. She had an amazing speech as always, as you expect from Carrie Young. And then as the pre recorded, Cynthia Erivo started singing her off. She apologized, sorry, Cynthia, and moved on. But that was a really wonderful speech. I thought Jack Malone's speech winning for best featured actor in a musical was. Was absolutely lovely. And it. And ended on one of those notes that like, I think all theater speeches should to like, call attention to the fact that while in the large scheme of things, Broadway matters from like a financial aspect because it, you know, is a huge revenue driver for the city of New York and the state of New York. And it matters because it makes people happy. But like, in the grand scheme of things, the world would go on if, if Broadway didn't exist and lives wouldn't be. Be markedly different. I mean, my, mine would be and yours would be too, probably. But you know what I'm getting at. But the impact of theater itself, not Broadway, but theater itself, is massive. And so many different people, especially Jack Malone, talked about whether it's representation, whether it's community. What Harvey Fierstein and even Paul Tazewell talked about so much was that theater is a place that welcomes people in, especially people who don't feel welcomed in many other places. And especially at a time like now, when so much of our society is turning its back on people that don't look or act or believe or love in the same ways that we do. It was an important reminder that theater is a place that at its very best, and it is not always the case, obviously, but at its very best should be a refuge and should be a respite for the people who feel like life can sometimes be against them. And we're not perfect with that. There's obviously times when we fail at that as a community. But it was a reminder to all of us that that is what we should be striving for more than anything else. Obviously striving to make money, we're striving to have a job, we're striving to make art, all of those things. But when it really comes down to it being a place that welcomes people wherever they are, coming from, wherever they are at in their lives. That's why we all love theater. I'm assuming that's why I love theater. And I think a lot of these acceptance speeches talked about that. 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We're going to dive into much more of the nitty gritty on tomorrow's episode when I'm able to talk with Grace. But if you didn't notice in real time and I did and my friends who I was watching the show with might have thought I was having a stroke. Because when Cynthia Erivo started singing her rewritten version of and I'm telling you, I just stood up out of my chair and said Grace. Because Grace Aki was right there behind Cynthia Erivo in the in that secondary stage and I don't know if she'd been there the whole time and I just hadn't seen her. If you hadn't noticed Grace is short, you might not get to see her, but because she turned around to look at Cynthia behind her, I could see Grace's face and I took a bunch of pictures and I posted them on social media. I think Grace posted them as well. When Grace realized that Cynthia was singing and I am telling you, you know Grace is an actor and you know that she is a performer and you know she is very expressive but the faces she was giving were priceless and I'm so glad that I got pictures of them and sent them to her. So go back and watch. If you haven't, like right when she starts singing, you can see it. It's going to be down in the bottom right corner of your screen. She is. Grace is right behind her. So that was pretty magical and pretty special. So we love that. We'll have to get the full insight from Grace tomorrow. Also, want to mention you heard two people who won Tony's on Sunday night give their predictions for shows here in recent Patreon episodes. Kaitlin Berg won her first Tony as a producer on Sunset Boulevard, and Oliver Roth, who has been doing podcasts with me here and in other places, won his fourth Tony Award for Sunset Boulevard. Got some nice pictures of Oliver on on the Tony stage as well. In addition to those predictions, you've also heard me do some interviews with people who won Tony's recently. Glen Davis won as a producer for purpose. He's the first gentleman who gave a speech. You also saw Dane Laffrey win a Tony Award for his designs for maybe Happy Ending, and I did not know that he was partners with Jen Silverman. I'm assuming it's playwright Jen Silverman. Maybe not. I guess it could be another Jen Silverman. But Jen Silverman, who is represented on Broadway this year with the Roommate and had a great show almost a decade ago called Collective Rage, a play in five Bettys. I didn't know that they were partners, so that was awesome to find out as well. So I hope you enjoyed the Tonys. I really enjoyed it. I don't know that any of the performances really stood out to me as exceptional, other than maybe Candela from Buena Vista Social Club, but I thought they were all pretty good. I'll have to go back and really watch them again to see if I think that any of them really sold tickets. Maybe Happy Endings Never Fly Away was was pretty lovely. Different than a lot of the performances where you watch that and go, oh, that's gonna get people to buy tickets, because it wasn't a big fancy, flashy number. But I thought it really did a good job of showing what that show was and at least for the people that I was watching with, none of whom who had seen the show, they all said, okay, I get it. I. I'm into it, I'm into it. So we'll dive into all of those kind of things a little bit more tomorrow because that's already been over 20 minutes now. But obviously super excited to hear about Grace's experience at the Tonys and give us a little bit more of a chance to flesh this conversation out, but I hope you enjoyed it again. Acting Cat 3 and Chris Huyen send me an email. Matt broadwayradio.com and we will figure out what we need to do to get you a prize pack. But that is all that we have for you today. Thanks for listening to Today on Broadway. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram at Brian Broadway Radio if you want to hear all of these great conversations that I got to have with people who were nominated for Tonys and then some of them who got to go on and win Tonys, head over to patreon.com broadwayradio broadwayradio.com patreon all right, everybody, have a wonderful Monday. We'll be back to talk to you tomorrow.