‘Hadestown’ wins 8 Tony Awards

Associated Press

NEW YORK

“Hadestown,” the brooding musical about the underworld, has reason to smile broadly: It’s the best new musical Tony Award winner and nabbed eight trophies Sunday, including a rare win for a woman director of a musical.

Playwright Jez Butterworth’s “The Ferryman” was crowned best play. Bryan Cranston, Elaine May, Santino Fontana and Stephanie J. Block all won leading actor and actress awards.

The crowd at Radio City Music Hall erupted when Ali Stroker made history as the first actor in a wheelchair to win a Tony Award. Stroker, paralyzed from the chest down due to a car crash when she was 2, won for featured actress in a musical for her work in a dark revival of “Oklahoma!”

“This award is for every kid who is watching tonight who has a disability, who has a limitation or a challenge, who has been waiting to see themselves represented in this arena,” she said. “You are.”

Rachel Chavkin, the only woman to helm a new Broadway musical this season, won the Tony for best director of a musical for “Hadestown.” She told the crowd she was sorry to be such a rarity on Broadway.

“There are so many women who are ready to go. There are so many people of color who are ready to go.” A lack of strides in embracing diversity on Broadway, she said, “is not a pipeline issue” but a lack of imagination.

Cranston seemed to tap into the vibe when he won the Tony for best leading man in a play for his work as newscaster Howard Beale in a stage adaptation of “Network.”

“Finally, a straight old white man gets a break!” he joked. The star, who wore a blue pin on his suit to support reproductive rights, also dedicated his award to journalists who are in the line of fire.

The cheers for women also got a boost when Butterworth, who earlier asked the crowd to give his partner, actress Laura Donnelly, a round of applause for giving birth to their two children in two years while working on the ensemble drama, handed the best play trophy to Donnelly. A Donnelly family story inspired him to write the play.

Fontana won his first Tony Award as the cross-dressing lead in “Tootsie.” Fontana, perhaps best known for his singing role as Hans in “Frozen,” won in an adaptation of the 1982 Dustin Hoffman film about a struggling actor who impersonated a woman in order to improve his chances of getting a job.

Another first-time winner was Block, who earned her Tony Award for playing a legend – Cher. Block, who has had roles on “Homeland” and “Orange Is the New Black,” is one of three actresses to play the title character in the musical “The Cher Show.” She thanked “the goddess Cher for her life and legacy.”

Other winners included the legendary May, who took home her first ever Tony for best leading actress, playing the Alzheimer’s-afflicted grandmother in Kenneth Lonergan’s comic drama “The Waverly Gallery.”