‘Fun Home’, ‘Curious Incident’ and ‘The King and I’ Win Big at the 69th Annual Tony Awards

By Nora Dominick ’17/ Emertainment Monthly Assistant Stage Editor

On Sunday June 7, 2015 the 69th Annual Tony Awards were held at Radio City Music Hall. The event was hosted by the hilarious duo Kristin Chenoweth (On the 20th Century, Wicked, Glee) and Alan Cumming (Cabaret, Macbeth, The Good Wife). Chenoweth and Cumming held their own as hosts and created a very fun, musical heavy Tony Award ceremony.

The hit new musical Fun Home and the ingenious new play The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time took home the most Tony Awards during the ceremony with a total of five awards. Fun Home took home the top prize for Best Musical as well as awards for Jeanine Tesori and Lisa Kron for Best Music and/or Lyrics and Book of Musical respectively. The duos win in the Best Music and/or Lyrcis category marks the first time an all-female collaboration took home the award. Michael Cerveris took home the award for Best Leading Actor in a Musical for his epic, career-defining portrayal of Bruce Bechdel in Fun Home. Also, Sam Gold took home the award for Best Direction of Musical for his role in creating the beautiful staging of Fun Home.

As for The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, the new play took home the awards for Best New Play and Marianne Elliott took home her second Tony Award for Best Direction of a Play, a well deserved win for the director. The big win for Curious Incident came with Alex Sharp’s first ever Tony Award win for Best Leading Actor in a Play for his work as Christopher. This career-defining, awe-inducing role was one Sharp was born to play and this win was very, very well deserved. Sharp gave a powerful acceptance speech when he said, “This play is about a young person who is different, and who is misunderstood, and I just want to dedicate this to any young person out there who feels misunderstood or who feels different, and answer that question at the end of the play for you, ‘does that mean I can do anything?’ Yes, yes it does.” Curious Incident also took home awards for Best Lighting Design and Best Scenic Design.

The King and I racked up several wins of their own at the 69th Annual Tony Awards. With a total of four wins the stunning revival took home awards for Best Revival of a Musical, Best Costume Design for Catherine Zuber and a magnificent win for Ruthie Ann Miles for Best Featured Actress in a Musical for her stunning turn as Lady Thiang. Of course the biggest win of the evening came when six-time Tony Award nominee Kelli O’Hara turned all those nomination into a huge win with her first ever Tony Award for Best Actress in a Musical for her role as Anna.

An American in Paris also walked away with several amazing awards at this years Tony Awards. It cleaned up in the technical categories. Bob Crowley and 59 Productions took home the award for Best Scenic Design for their work on An American in Paris and Christopher Wheeldon took home the much-deserved award for Best Choreography.

Dame Helen Mirren became a Tony Award winner tonight as well. She took home her first ever Tony Award for her stunning portrayal of Queen Elizabeth II in The Audience. This is the second time Mirren has won an award for playing Queen Elizabeth II and she even started her acceptance speech with, “Your majesty you did it again.” This was a very well-deserved win for the astounding actress. Christian Borle also won the Tony Award for Best Featured Actor in a Musical for his portrayal of Shakespeare in the hilarious musical comedy Something Rotten! and another big win of the night was when Annaleigh Ashford took home the Tony Award for Featured Actress in a Play for You Can’t Take It With You.

Below is a list of all the winners at the 69th Annual Tony Awards: