September 26, 2021 was a magical night for the theatre community. It was the night of the long-awaited 2020 Tony Awards ceremony and was followed by a two-hour long televised event entitled "Broadway's Back". The whole night was a glorious one and served as a source of joy as well as a reminder of just how amazing, fantastic, wonderful and all the other positive adjectives theatre is.
The celebration was all the things a night like this should be: big, spectacular, beautiful, majestic, loud, energized, proud and melodious. However, it wasn't without its shortcomings.
People who steal roles from trans people and lie about it shouldn’t win Tonys. The biggest letdown of the night was when Lauren Patten won the Tony for Best Featured Actress in a Musical, a win with which The American Theatre Wing displayed their transphobia.
I don’t have a lot of knowledge of plays but before the Tonys, I did a little bit of research on Slave Play and The Inheritance as they were the two shows I had heard the most about and seemed most intriguing to me prior to the shutdown. From the little bit of information I gathered on each, both seem like wonderful shows. While I was pleased by The Inheritance’s many wins, it was impossible not to note that Slave Play failed to take home any awards. On social media platforms, leading up to the Tonys I encountered much excitement surrounding the show. People seemed to love it and expect it to take home some big prizes. Yet it didn't. Not only is this representative of the American Theatre Wing being out of touch with audiences, it is also evidence that racism is still alive and well within the industry and despite great progress that has been made, we still have a long way to go.
The event was split between two different viewing manners. The Tony ceremony itself aired on Paramount+ and Broadway's Back, which also included the presentation of several Tonys, aired on CBS, the television channel which the Tonys usually air on. The split streaming and cable tv event worked well for people who have access to both platforms but I know several people in my own personal life who didn’t watch the first half of the ceremony because they didn’t have Paramount+ and weren’t willing to get it just to watch a one night event. This undoubtedly applied to myriad viewers and had a negative effect on the viewership of the first two hours of the night.
With those being my only complaints, let's move on to the good things. To start, I just want to say how amazing it is to finally be able to say "Tony winner Aaron Tveit"!!!! Aaron may have been the only one nominated in his category, but that didn't make his win any less deserved as it is a win which 'Tveitnation' has been awaiting for years. On the same note, I was thrilled by Moulin Rouge's many wins of the evening! It was great to see this wonderful show take home so many awards and it was especially pleasing to see fan-favorite Danny Burstein finally win a much-deserved tony for his performance as Harold Zidler in the show.
On the fashion front there was plenty of variety from fierce mother daughter duo LaChanze and Celia Rose Gooding dressed to powerful, elegant perfection in jewel tones to Myra Lucretia Taylor, Jasmine Cephas Jones, and Beanie Feldstein all showing up in some shockingly bright colors. There were a number of guests I was surprised to discover were absent from the event, chief among them Billy Porter, Eva Noblezada and Reeve Carney. I know not why they were not in attendance, I only hope to see them there in the future, as they are some of the strongest talents in the industry right now.
Leslie Odom Jr. and Audra McDonald were both fantastic hosts as they informed and guided the audience along, of which there was no shortage. There were no dull moments or boring performances on that night! Jennifer Holliday’s spectacular performance has been the event of the evening that has been getting all of the attention on social media and deservedly so, hers was undoubtedly the most perfect example of the kind of utterly raw, purely perfect talent found in the theatre, but the night was filled with a plethora of amazing performances of all kind- full cast performances of the newest shows, older classic show tunes sung by modern favorites, original cast members of some of Broadway's biggest hits reunited to perform their duo’s most iconic songs, a riveting dance and spoken-word number performed by the Broadway Advocacy Coalition and to cap it all off, a fun filled four-minute performance by Freestyle Love Supreme to sum up the four hours of joyous, wonderous celebration of theatre.
More than a year late and aired in a different way than ever before, the 2020 Tony Awards did not disappoint. They were a four long festivity that infected at home viewers such as myself with absolute joy and reminded us all of just how strong our love for theatre is.
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