The Tony Awards are underway, and "Hadestown" has proved to be the show to beat. The musical entered the night with a leading 14 nominations and has won seven statues so far, taking home honors for director, score, featured actor, and four technical categories.
Rachel Chavkin, the lone woman in her category, won for direction of the musical, a folk-operatic reimagining of the Orpheus and Eurydice myth.
"It's about keeping faith when you are made to feel alone, and that is how the power structures try to maintain control _ by trying to make you feel like you're walking in the darkness, even when your partner is right behind you," she said, holding back tears. Chavkin called for more inclusion among Broadway's ranks of stage directors and critics. "There are so many women who are ready to go, there are so many artists of color who are ready to go. ... It is a failure of imagination by a field whose job it is to imagine how the world could be."
Ali Stroker made history as the first performer who uses a wheelchair to win a Tony.
"This award is for every kid who is watching tonight, who has a limitation or a challenge, who has been waiting to see themselves represented in this arena," the "Oklahoma!" co-star, best featured actress in a musical, said after a standing ovation. Backstage, Stroker told media that she hopes theater owners and producers would look into making their backstages more accessible for performers with disabilities.
The reimagining of Rodgers & Hammerstein's "Oklahoma!" also took home the prize for best musical revival.
Broadway veteran Andre De Shields won his first Tony for his featured performance in "Hadestown." Channeling his wise and godly character Hermes, the 73-year-old actor shared three pieces of advice in his acceptance speech: "One, surround yourself with people whose eyes light up when they see you coming. Two, slowly is the fastest way to get to where you want to be. And three, the top of one mountain is the bottom of the next, so keep climbing."
Elaine May scored a victory for lead actress for her performance in "The Waverly Garden," beating Annette Bening, Janet McTeer, Laurie Metcalf, Laura Donnelly and Heidi Schreck in a particularly packed category. "Ink" actor Bertie Carvel and "To Kill a Mockingbird" actress Celia Keenan-Bolger won for their featured performances.
The star-studded staging of "The Boys in the Band," which producer Ryan Murphy is adapting for Netflix, won the award for play revival.
"I remember being a very, very young guy _ 6 or 7, seeing 'Boys in the Band' on television _ and it was the only thing that I had, the only group of gay men I had ever seen," he told reporters backstage. "I'm just excited about the evolution of that idea and bringing it to a new audience."
The award for directing a play went to "The Ferryman" and Sam Mendes, who is filming the next James Bond movie and shared his remarks via email. "It's a little bit bonkers trying to make theater on Broadway _ to be dealing with something so fragile in such a rough-and-tumble environment," he said. "But when it works, it's like nowhere else in the world."
James Corden, hosting the Tonys for the second time, sprinkled in crowd-pleasing pokes at how annoying it is when phones ring during shows, how expensive Broadway tickets have become and how low the industry's paychecks and the CBS telecast's ratings tend to be.
Bob Mackie won a Tony for his extravagant "Cher Show" costumes, and Robert Horn took home the book of a musical award for his comical take on "Tootsie."
