Helen Mirren’s Fun Home Wins 5 Tony Awards

The 69th Annual Tony Awards held at Radio City Music Hall on June 7, 2015 in New York City declared Fun Home as the Best Musical. And the Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time was declared the Best Play. Meanwhile, The King and I was the Best Revival of a Musical and as for Skylight it was the Best Revival of a Play.

The Tony Awards which are American theater awards are in recognition of the achievements in live Broadway theatre.(first decide if you want to spell it this way or another way. Theater can be spelt as theater and as theatre too. This year’s awards were hosted by Ms. Chenoweth and Alan Cumming.

Helen Mirren won the best actress award for playing her role as Queen Elizabeth II. She also won an Oscar for the role. Ms. Mirren’s won the award for her performance in “The Audience”. The show creatively conveyed the conversations between the queen and a series of British prime ministers and was also sold out in London on Broadway.

While accepting her award Ms. Mirren thanked her husband at first by saying that the award given to her is a massive honor and she owes it to him. She also admired other British productions in nomination and said that it was a very tough competition to win such an award.

The award for the best actor in a musical was won by Michael Cerveris, which was his second Tony award. “Fun Home” featured Cerveris as a homosexual father and it also earned other awards for best director for Sam Gold, as well as best book and best score.

In his acceptance speech, he said that he was very fortunate to be standing there and while congratulating his fellow nominees he said that they all deserve to be nominated.

A British production play known as The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time which was adapted from Mark Haddon’s best-selling novel won five Tony awards. The play showcased the story of a fifteen year old boy affected by Asperger’s syndrome who searches for the killer of a neighborhood dog.

Skylight won best revival of a play and The King and I took the award for best revival of a musical. Christopher Wheeldon won Best Choreography for An American in Paris and had to compete with Vincente Minnelli’s iconic work on the beloved 1951 film musical.

Kelli O’Hara became lucky after six nominations and finally won her first Tony for the best actress in a musical as the governess in “The King and I”. In her acceptance speech she jokingly said that the people might be thinking that she would have written something down by now but she actually had not. She thanked her husband and parents for encouraging her in her pursuit of fame.

The important Tony award wins for the 2015 can be summed up as: Leading Actor in a Play won by Alex Sharp; Helen Mirren for Leading Actress in a Play – “The Audience”; Leading Actor in a Musical won by Cerveris for Fun Home; Kelli O’Hara for Leading Actress in a Musical – The King and I and the best book of a musical won by Lisa Kron for Fun Home and many others.

Complete list of 2015 Tony Awards is given below:

Best musical

Fun Home

Best play

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time

Best revival of a musical

The King and I

Best revival of a play

Skylight

Leading actor in a play

Alex Sharp, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time

Leading actress in a play

Helen Mirren, The Audience

Leading actor in a musical

Michael Cerveris, Fun Home

Leading actress in a musical

Kelli O’Hara, The King and I

Best book of a musical

Fun Home, Lisa Kron

Best original score (music and/or lyrics)

Fun Home, music by Jeanine Tesori, lyrics by Lisa Kron

Featured actor in a play

Richard McCabe, The Audience

Featured actress in a play

Annaleigh Ashford, You Can’t Take It With You

Featured actor in a musical

Christian Borle, Something Rotten!

Featured actress in a musical

Ruthie Ann Miles, The King and I

Scenic design of a play

Bunny Christie and Finn Ross, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time

Scenic design of a musical

Bob Crowley and 59 Productions, An American in Paris

Costume design of a play

Christopher Oram, Wolf Hall Parts One & Two

Costume design of a musical

Catherine Zuber, The King and I

Lighting design of a play

Paule Constable, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time

Lighting design of a musical

Natasha Katz, An American in Paris

Direction of a play

Marianne Elliott, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time

Direction of a musical

Sam Gold, Fun Home

Choreography

Christopher Wheeldon, An American in Paris

Orchestrations

Christopher Austin, Don Sebesky, Bill Elliott, An American in Paris

Lifetime Achievement Tony Award

Tommy Tune

Special Tony

John Cameron Mitchell

Regional Theatre

Cleveland Play House, Cleveland, Ohio

Isabelle Stevenson Award

Stephen Schwartz

Excellence in the Theatre

Arnold Abramson; Adrian Bryan-Brown; Gene O’Donovan