Tony Awards 2025: Highlights and Disappointments from the Night

Promoted extensively before each commercial break, the original cast of Hamilton finally took the stage at Radio City Music Hall for a tenth-anniversary reunion performance that lived up to the hype. Elegantly lit, dressed, and choreographed, Lin-Manuel Miranda and Leslie Odom Jr. returned with flair, joined by Phillipa Soo, Renée Elise Goldsberry, Jasmine Cephas Jones, and the Tony-nominated actor who played King George. Their eight-song medley—including “My Shot,” “The Schuyler Sisters,” and “The Room Where It Happens”—was electrifying and easily ranks among the greatest Tony performances ever.

Gary Edwin Robinson, whose baritone voice, sly smile, and knowing glances revealed his thespian roots, was honored with a Tony for his second career as a teacher at Boys and Girls High School in Brooklyn’s Bedford-Stuyvesant. Receiving the award, he spoke about training his students not only to appreciate theater but also to pursue careers in it. While fostering appreciation is valuable, instilling in young people the belief that discovering 'the theater within themselves' can be noble and necessary is far more challenging.

Nicole Scherzinger’s acceptance speech was as dramatically grand as her measured and precise movements in Sunset Boulevard. She honored “the exceptional warrior women in this category” with trembling hands and tears, delivering a performance reminiscent of a modern Maria Callas raising her fist to the sky—except this time, fortune favored her. The overwhelming theatricality conveyed a classical grandeur, evoking the spirit of Medea.

A staple of awards shows, presenters often climb into the balcony seats to mingle with the audience and share a joke or two. Cynthia Erivo’s ascent to the balcony was worth the wait. Her pink dress, resembling candy wrapping, was whimsically striking amid a night of costume changes. The intimate atmosphere inspired sharp humor about her height, Abraham Lincoln, and, most memorably, why sitting far away was the best spot to watch Jonathan Groff—dubbed 'the man who spits when he sings'—with the line, “Let’s welcome the man who wets everyone...”

Spectacle is distinct from acting skill—it’s elusive and unevenly distributed: you either have it or you don’t. Jonathan Groff’s vibrant medley of “Mack the Knife,” “That’s All,” and “Once in a Lifetime” proved he possesses it. In this context, mere interpretation isn’t enough; the performer must sell the song. Bobby Darin, Groff’s role in Just in Time, had this quality. At Radio City, Groff moved like a man possessed by the need to entertain, perched atop Keanu Reeves’ seated head, driven by frenetic bongo rhythms. It’s a performance that suggests he should host next year’s Tonys.

This season marked a turning point for virtual set design on Broadway, with shows like Sunset Boulevard, The Picture of Dorian Gray, Redwood, and Maybe Happy Ending adopting digital backdrops. The Tony broadcast followed suit, abandoning traditional panels, curtains, and wagons in favor of digital backgrounds that ultimately felt kitschy. In particular, the Operation Mincemeat musical segment suffered under yellowish screens that made actors appear submerged in fondue. Why would a theatrical awards show choose such antithetical staging? Likely for speed, cost savings, and to better capture an audience distracted by their own screens.

The night was historic for Asian and Asian American theater artists, including Nicole Scherzinger, Francis Jue, and Darren Criss, all Tony winners in performance categories. Marco Paguia earned a Tony for orchestrations on Buena Vista Social Club, and Hue Park won for lyric writing and co-writing the book of Maybe Happy Ending, the evening’s big success. Several winners reflected on feelings of exclusion before finding a home in theater. Scherzinger, highlighting her Filipino, Native Hawaiian, and Ukrainian heritage, said, “I always felt like I didn’t belong, but you all have made me feel that I belong and that I have finally come home.”

Despite its glamour and genuine talent recognition, the Tonys also serve as industry promotion, designed not only to sell tickets in New York but also to extend the life of nominated shows beyond Broadway. Musicals, with their vibrant numbers, have an advantage in this regard, while plays tend to stay confined to the stage. However, this year’s presentation of Best Play nominees had its charm: a video-framed screen on stage featured a nominated star from each play giving an affectionate synopsis, including Marjan Neshat (English), Sadie Sink (John Proctor Is the Villain), Cole Escola (Oh, Mary!), Harry Lennix (Purpose), and Laura Donnelly (The Hills of California). It was easy to imagine producers and audience members outside suddenly intrigued.

Handling overlong winner speeches is always delicate. An improvement over elevator music was Cynthia Erivo’s rendition of a snippet from “My Way,” popularized by Frank Sinatra. When Kara Young, accepting her award for Purpose, was still listing her extensive acknowledgments, Erivo’s soft song provided a soothing backdrop: “And now, the end is near / And so I face the final curtain...”

Not every award moment deserves center stage, but relegating the honors for script and score to the pre-Tony event felt, at best, dismissive. What is a musical without its songs? Or its sometimes challenging dialogue between numbers? (And dance, too, is almost never televised.) This year, Maybe Happy Ending’s wins for script and score practically guaranteed its overall victory, yet viewers watching only the main broadcast would have been unaware. Couldn’t some medication ads or presenter jokes be swapped to showcase these awards on the main stage?

In Operation Mincemeat, the standout song “Dear Bill,” performed by Jak Malone, lasts nearly six minutes. It was a key factor in Malone’s Tony win for Best Featured Actor, as the character—Hester, a middle-aged British intelligence secretary—opens her wounded heart to the audience. Malone said in his acceptance, “They cry for her, they’re involved with her, they love her for her old romantic heart. And if you’ve seen our show and found yourself believing in Hester, I’m glad to say that, intentionally or not, you may have just said goodbye to cynicism, outdated ideas, and that stale, rotten binary, opening yourself to a world out there in glorious Technicolor that isn’t going anywhere soon.”