Heart Over Commerce The conventional wisdom held that the 800-plus Tony voters, many with a financial stake in the productions that were nominated, would mark their ballots for the more mainstream — “An American in Paris” — over the more challenging and risky — “Fun Home.” The latter, a musical about a lesbian cartoonist coming to terms with her closeted gay father’s suicide, not only took the top prize of Best Musical but also won four more prestigious honors: Best Actor (Michael Cerveris), Best Direction (Sam Gold), Best Book (Lisa Kron), and Best Score (Kron and Jeanine Tesori). Modest shows have won over their glitzier competitors before, most famously “Avenue Q” over the epic “Wicked.” But the former was a heartwarming and whimsical comedy with lovable furry puppets. “Fun Home” was not your feel-good show by any means, beginning in the hothouse laboratories of the Public Theater where anything goes and the failure rate is high for that very reason. The adventurous commercial producers of “Fun Home” stuck to their guns right up to, and including, the telecast. Integrity Wins the Night but Not Necessarily the Box-Office In deciding what number to present on the CBS Telecast, “Fun Home” again defied the well-worn path trod by producers “to sell” their musical in the allotted minutes. That often meant creating a four-to-seven minute mash-up that had the best chance of driving them to the box-office whether or not it had much to do with the show. Indeed all of the other nominated musicals chose that traditional route. And “Fun Home” had a ready-made audience pleaser: an hilarious Jackson Five-infused number about the funeral home which serves as the setting for the show sung by three adorable children. Instead, they opted for 11-year-old Sydney Lucas, a Tony nominee, singing “Ring of Keys,” about a young girl’s growing awareness of her attraction to women when she spies a “butch” delivery woman entering a diner. It’s unlikely that the number will drive up the box-office significantly (although the Tony wins will). In fact, Telecharge was monitoring the spikes in sales as the telecast proceeded. The biggest reputed winners of the night? “Finding Neverland” and “The King and I.” The Harvey Weinstein Factor “Finding Neverland” reaped the rewards of Broadway’s biggest infomercial even though it was completely shut out of the nominations. Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein, in his first foray as lead producer of the $20 million musical, knew how to play the snub. He had managed to wangle his way onto the telecast last season even though “Finding Neverland” had not opened. This year, he gamely showed up in prime seats at Radio City Music Hall to be teased by the evening’s co-hosts Alan Cumming and Kristin Chenoweth and to watch as Jennifer Lopez, Nick Jonas, and pop star Kiesza introduced a lavish number from “Finding Neverland” featuring Kelsey Grammer and Matthew Morrison. Weinstein’s gambit allowed two lesser shows that had not been nominated — “It Shoulda Been You” and “Gigi” — to win a place on the telecast. If the producers made an exception in Harvey’s case, then they couldn’t very well tell the producers of these struggling musicals they couldn’t have time to sell their wares. The Brits Turn the Atlantic from a Pond to a Little CreekAs widely expected, Helen Mirren took home the trophy for her riveting performance in Peter Morgan’s smash hit “The Audience,” playing yet again the character of Queen Elizabeth II for which she’d won the Oscar in Morgan’s “The Queen.” In her acceptance speech, she noted the number of her fellow Brits who were not only part of the season but were also nominated. She said “it made the Atlantic look like a little creek that you can just hop across.” Among the winners to make that transatlantic journey were Richard McCabe, who played Prime Minister Harold Wilson opposite Mirren, and several of the creative team behind “The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time,” the National Theatre of Great Britain import which won five Tonys, including Best Play, Best Direction of a Play (Marianne Elliott), Best Actor (London-born Alex Sharp), Best Lighting (Paule Constable), and Best Sets (Bunny Christine and Finn Ross). Also anointed as Best Revival of a Play was “Skylight,” the first Tony Award for David Hare, one of Britain’s most famous playwrights. The Irish-born designer Bob Crowley, who had been nominated for four Tony Awards, triumphed for his spectacular design of “An American in Paris,” and Christopher Oram won for his costumes for “Wolf Hall, Parts One and Two,” the only honor given to the much-nominated historical epic about the Tudor Dynasty. And although he now considers himself an American in New York, the British-born Christopher Wheeldon took home the trophy for Best Choreography for “An American in Paris.”Hang In There, KelliThe most emotional moment of the evening belonged to Kelli O’Hara, who, on her sixth try, finally won a Tony for her Anna Leonowens in “The King and I,” which also won for Best Revival of a Musical. The entire audience at the Radio City Music Hall stood in an ovation for the Oklahoma-born star who literally danced a jig upon receiving her award. “You would think I would have written something down by now, but I haven’t,” she said, adding that her parents no longer had to pretend that it was okay had she lost. She was in a fierce contest for the prize with Kristin Chenoweth for “On the Twentieth Century” in a category that also include Beth Malone (“Fun Home”), Leanne Cope (“An American in Paris”), and the legendary Chita Rivera, who was up for her tenth Tony Award for “The Visit.” During her string of losses, O’Hara might have taken some comfort from Rivera’s own history with Broadway’s top honor. Having made her debut in 1953, it took the accomplished actor another eight years to finally be nominated. (She was inexplicably overlooked when she created the iconic role of Anita in “West Side Story.”) And it was another twenty-three years (!) before her first win in 1984’s “The Rink.” When it comes to the Tony Awards, persistence pays off.
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