Tony Awards laud android rom-com 'Maybe Happy Ending' and history-making
'Purpose'
[June 09, 2025]
By MARK KENNEDY
NEW YORK (AP) — “Maybe Happy Ending,” a rom-com about androids that
crackles with humanity, had a definite happy ending at Sunday's Tony
Awards. It won best new musical on a night when Kara Young made history
as the first Black person to win two Tonys consecutively for “Purpose,”
which also won best new play.
Starring Darren Criss and Helen J. Shen, “Maybe Happy Ending” charts the
relationship between two decommissioned robots, becoming a commentary on
human themes and the passage of time. It won a leading six Tonys.
With “Purpose,” a drawing-room drama about an accomplished Black family
exposing hypocrisy and pressures during a snowed-in gathering,
playwright Branden Jacobs-Jenkins caps a remarkable year: In addition to
winning back-to-back Tonys — his “Appropriate” won best play revival
last year — he earned the Pulitzer Prize for “Purpose.” (That win came
the day of the Met Gala, where he served on the host committee.)
Jacobs-Jenkins is the first Black playwright to win the category since
August Wilson for “Fences” in 1987. He urged viewers to support regional
theaters; “Purpose” was nurtured in Chicago.
“Theater is a sacred space that we have to honor and treasure, and it
makes us united,” Young said in her own acceptance speech.
Notable Tony moments
“Sunset Blvd.,” with Nicole Scherzinger as a fallen screen idol
desperate to reclaim her fame, won best musical revival, handing
composer Andrew Lloyd Webber his first competitive Tony since 1995 —
when the original show won. The current version is a stripped-down,
minimalist production.
Scherzinger also won for best lead actress in a musical, muscling aside
a considerable challenge from Audra McDonald in a remarkable career
pivot for the former lead singer of pop group Pussycat Dolls and TV
talent show judge.
“Growing up, I always felt like I didn't belong, but you all have made
me feel like I belong and I have come home at last,” she said. “So if
there's anyone out there who feels like they don't belong, or your time
hasn't come, don't give up. Just keep on giving and giving because the
world needs your love and your light now more than ever.”
Criss, who has starred in everything from “Glee” to “The Assassination
of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story,” won his first Tony for “Maybe
Happy Ending,” which he also co-produced. He said he shared it with Shen,
who was not nominated.
Sarah Snook won leading actress in a play for her tireless work in “The
Picture of Dorian Gray,” where she plays all 26 roles.
“I don’t feel alone any night that I do this show,” Snook said,
dismissing the idea of it as a one-woman show. “There are so many people
onstage making it work and behind the stage making it work.”
Downtown cabaret star Cole Escola won best actor in a play for their
deranged, repressed and over-the-top ahistorical version of Mary Todd
Lincoln in “Oh Mary!,” beating such Hollywood stars as George Clooney
and Daniel Dae Kim. Sam Pinkleton won best director for “Oh, Mary!” and
thanked Escola, saying they taught him, “Do what you love, not what you
think people want to see.”
Francis Jue won best featured actor in a play for the revival of “Yellow
Face.” He said he was gifted his tuxedo from another Asian actor who
wanted him to wear it to the Tonys.
“I’m only here because of the encouragement and inspiration of
generations of wonderful deserving Asian artists who came before me,” he
said.
Jak Malone won best featured actor in a musical for the British import
“Operation Mincemeat: A New Musical,” playing a woman every performance.
He hoped his win could be powerful advocacy for trans rights. “Eureka
Day,” Jonathan Spector’s social satire about well-meaning liberals
debating a school’s vaccine policy, won best play revival.
The original cast of “Hamilton,” including creator Lin-Manuel Miranda,
did a victory lap dressed in black to mark the show's 10th anniversary
on Broadway, with a medley including “My Shot,” “The Schuyler Sisters,”
“History Has Its Eyes on You” and “The Room Where It Happens.”
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Lin-Manuel Miranda performs a medley from "Hamilton" during the 78th
Tony Awards on Sunday, June 8, 2025, at Radio City Music Hall in New
York. (Photo by Charles Sykes/Invision/AP)
 The host with the most
First-time host Cynthia Erivo kicked off the show from her Radio
City Music Hall dressing room, unsure of her opening number. As she
made her way through the backstage warren, she ran into various
people offering advice until she reached Oprah Winfrey, who advised,
“The only thing you need to do is just be yourself.”
Erivo then appeared at the stage in a red, spangly gown with white
accents, hip cocked, as she launched into the slow-burning original
“Sometimes All You Need Is a Song,” written by Marc Shaiman, Scott
Wittman, Benj Pasek and Justin Paul. Initially alone with a pianist,
Erivo’s soaring voice was soon joined by members of the Broadway
Inspirational Voices choir, all dressed in white, making her look
like a powerful strawberry in a bowl of whipped cream.
In her opening comments, she singled out first-time nominees Escola,
Louis McCartney, Sadie Sink, and “an up-and-comer that I think
you’re going to really be hearing quite a bit about — George
Clooney.”
She noted that the 2024-2025 season took in $1.9 billion, making it
the highest-grossing ever and signaling Broadway has finally emerged
from the COVID-19 blues.
“Broadway is officially back,” Erivo said. “Provided we don’t run
out of cast members from ‘Succession,’” a nod to appearances this
season by former co-stars Snook and Kieran Culkin and last season by
Jeremy Strong.
She and Sara Bareilles dueted for a moving in memoriam, singing “The
Sun Will Come Out” from “Annie,” and honoring its composer Charles
Strouse as well as George Wendt, Richard Chamberlain, Athol
Fugard,Joan Plowright, Quincy Jones, Linda Lavin, James Earl Jones
and Gavin Creel.
Erivo was an amiable host, at one point appearing in the second
mezzanine to comment that everyone likes the view from theater
balconies — except perhaps Abraham Lincoln. She had fun with Winfrey
later on, telling her to check under her chair, where she found a
gift bag with a toy automobile. “You get a car!” Erivo cracked.
Pre-show results
The best book and best score awards went to “Maybe Happy Ending,”
with lyrics written by Hue Park and music composed by Will Aronson.
Its director, Michael Arden, won — “Happy Pride!” he said — and it
also picked up best scenic design.
Justin Peck and Patricia Delgado won for choreographing “Buena Vista
Social Club” and Peck noted a song from the renowned original album
was played at their wedding. The musical takes its inspiration from
Wim Wenders’ 1999 Oscar-nominated documentary on the making of the
Cuban album. It won four Tonys.
Best costumes in a play went to Marg Hornwell for “The Picture of
Dorian Gray,” while “Death Becomes Her” won the musical counterpart
for Paul Tazewell months after he became the first Black man to win
an Oscar for designing costumes.
Harvey Fierstein, the four-time Tony winner behind “Torch Song
Trilogy” and “Kinky Boots,” was honored with a lifetime achievement
Tony and became emotional during his speech.
“There is nothing quite like bathing in the applause of a curtain
call, but when I bow, I bow to the audience, with gratitude, knowing
that without them I might as well be lip-syncing showtunes in my
bedroom mirror," he said. "And so I dedicate this award to the
people in the dark.”
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