From Ali Stroker tearfully dedicating her Tony to “every kid who is watching tonight who has a disability” to Elaine May’s wry explanation for her win to Andre De Shields’ three rules of longevity: Here are some  memorable moments at the 73rd annual Tony Awards — moving, funny, wise.  Click on each photograph to read the captions. Below that, watch all nine numbers from nominated shows and Taylor Mac describe “Gary”
(Complete list of Tony winners.
Speeches you didn’t see on TV

2019 New York theater award season summed up

“This award is for every kid who is watching tonight who has a disability, who has a limitation, who has a challenge, who has been waiting to see themselves represented in this arena. You are,” Ali Stroker said on accepting best actress in a featured role in musical for playing Ado Annie in Oklahoma.

Three lessons learned, by Anais Mitchell, accepting Tony for Hadestown: “Nobody does it alone. It takes a long time. It’s worth it. ”

In presenting an early award, Tina Fey said there should be just two categories for actors, not male and female, but human and puppet. Earlier (not broadcast) Sonny Tilders accepted a special Tony for the puppet design of King Kong.

“I’d like to dedicate this to all the real journalists The media is not the enemy of the people. Demagoguery is the enemy of the people – -Bryan Crantson accepting his Tony for playing fictional newsman Howard Beale in Network. “Finally a straight old white man gets a break!” he joked.

“My death was described onstage by Lucas Hedges so brilliantly…. He was so touching, that watching from the wings, I thought, ‘I’m gonna win this guy’s Tony!'” — Elaine May…at her Tony acceptance speech for best actress for her role in The Waverly Gallery

Statistically speaking the majority of you will be losers,” host James Corden said, launching one of his several comic bits throughout the evening. So he asked Kristin Chenoweth and Jeff Daniels among others to practice their “losing faces,” because “when the camera is on you, you need to hide that disgust.” Chenoweth did her best. Jeff Daniels, didn’t

.I wish I wasn’t the only woman directing a musical on Broadway this season — There are so many women and artists of color ready to go”- Rachel Chavkin, accepting her Tony for best director of Hadestown. “It’s a failure of imagination by a field whose job it is to imagine how the world could be,”

Taylor Mac at the Tonys

The lesbian kiss at the end of The Prom musical number, which caused less of a stir than it did during the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade

On accepting his Tony for Hadestown, Andre De Shields explained his 3 rules of longevity: “1: Surround yourself with people whose eyes light up when they see you coming. 2: slowly is the fastest way to get to where you want to be. 3: the top of one mountain is the bottom of the next so keep climbing.”

The Week in New York Theater Reviews

Little Women

In her stage version of Louisa May Alcott’s beloved 19^thcentury novel, Kate Hamill promises a “radical adaptation” and a “conscious explosion” of “the archetypes found in the novel.”  But there’s no pointless demolition in Primary Stages’ production of Hamill’s “Little Women,” which is playing through June 29^that the Cherry Lane.  Portrayed by a first-rate, racially/ethnically diverse cast, Hamill’s four March sisters may be in one way 21^st century women, facing issues like postpartum depression and sexual harassment, or waving a flag for gender fluidity. But they are also very much recognizable as the distinctive characters from the novel..

Full review

Public Servant

Following up on her play “The Cake,” about a baker in North Carolina who struggles to accept her lesbian goddaughter, playwright (and “This Is Us” producer-writer) Bekah Brunstetter now gives us a local politician in North Carolina who struggles with the question: Can politics really help people?

That is the question that two other characters in “Public Servant” ask newly elected County Commissioner Ed Sink (Chris Henry Coffey) directly, indirectly and repeatedly in this worthy and worthwhile new play produced by Theater Breaking Through Barriers at Theatre Row.

Full review

Frankie and Johnny at the Clair de Lune

In its ultimately lovely if overlong Broadway revival, “Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune” begins with loud grunting and shrieking, amid glimpses of breasts and buttocks in the dim light of a dingy tenement apartment, as Audra McDonald as Frankie and Michael Shannon as Johnny go at it on her fold-out bed. Immediately after they’ve finished having sex, Johnny tells Frankie a long anecdote about farting, and then Frankie retreats to the bathroom,  keeping the door open and visibly sitting on the toilet….Rhe unusually graphic earthiness of the opening seems to be director Arin Arbus’s attempt to co-opt one of the two criticisms that this production seemed likely to receive. The director at the get-go is downplaying the inherent glamour of her two performers

Full review

The Week in New York Theater News

The Inheritance is coming to Broadway in the Fall. The Olivier-winning two-part play by Matthew Lopez re-envisions E. M. Forster’s Howards End, following three generations of gay New Yorkers. It begins Sept 27 at Ethel Barrymore.

Another amazing-sounding season coming up at The Public Theater, with revivals from Ntozake Shange and Tony Kushner, a new musical by David Henry Hwang and Jeanine Tesori, and another by the Next to Normal team, and new plays by Mona Mansour and Richard Nelson, among others.