“The Book of Mormon” swept the 65th annual Tony Awards on Sunday night taking home a total of nine awards including best musical, book, original score, orchestrations, direction, scenic design, lighting, sound, and featured actress.
“War Horse”, a British play set in the WWI era featuring life-sized puppets, also received top honors with awards for best play, direction of a play, scenic design of a play, lighting and sound design.
Other major awards were split among other popular shows of the season. Mark Rylance received a Tony for best actor in a play for his performance in “Jerusalem” while the award for best actress in a play went to Frances McDormand for her role in “Good People”. Norbert Leo Butz’ performance in “Catch Me If You Can” won him the award for best actor in a musical while Sutton Foster took home her second Tony award for her role in the revival of “Anything Goes”.
Neil Patrick Harris shined as host of the Tony’s for the second time. Harris brought out the best in the audience with his charm, humor, and of course his singing and dancing skills. His performance with former host and Tony winner Hugh Jackman was a major highlight of the night. They performed Broadway hits from “Annie Get Your Gun”, “Gypsy” and “Singin’ in the Rain”. They proved to be quite the on-stage duo showing off their singing and dancing skills, and leaving the audience with hopes of an encore gig at next year’s awards.
Harry Potter singing and dancing? Yes, anything can happen at the Tony’s. Harry Potter, also known by his real name Daniel Radcliffe, surprised me with his versatility that I had no idea he had. He proved to be a triple threat performer when he sang a song from “How To Succeed in Business Without Really Trying”.
One of my favorite moments is when Martha Wash stepped out on stage to sing “It’s Raining Men” with the cast of “Priscilla Queen”, dressed in everything from flowers to feathers. Their costumes added extra spunk and made it a total performance appealing to the eyes as well as the ears.
Overall, the night of winners and performances planted a great memory in the awards’ history, and definitely set the bar high for next year.