| 71st Tony Awards | |
|---|---|
 Official poster | |
| Date | June 11, 2017 |
| Location | Radio City Music Hall,Manhattan,New York City |
| Hosted by | Kevin Spacey |
| Most wins | Dear Evan Hansen (6) |
| Most nominations | Natasha, Pierre & The Great Comet of 1812 (12) |
| Website | tonyawards |
| Television/radio coverage | |
| Network | CBS |
| Viewership | 6.0 million[1] |
| Produced by | Ricky Kirshner Glenn Weiss |
| Directed by | Glenn Weiss |
The71st Annual Tony Awards were held on June 11, 2017, to recognize achievement inBroadway productions during the 2016–17 season. The ceremony was held atRadio City Music Hall in New York City, and was broadcast live byCBS.[2]Kevin Spacey served as host.[3]
The musicalNatasha, Pierre & The Great Comet of 1812 led the nominations with 12, while the play with the most nominations wasA Doll's House, Part 2, with eight.[4] At the ceremony,Dear Evan Hansen won six awards, includingBest Musical, becoming the production with the most wins of the season. 23-year-oldBen Platt, who played thetitle character, became the youngest solo winner forBest Actor in a Leading Role in a Musical. 21-year-oldEva Noblezada received her first nomination forBest Actress in a Leading Role in a Musical for her Broadway debut as Kim inMiss Saigon, becoming one of the youngest nominees in Best Actress in a Musical category. TheBette Midler-led revival ofHello, Dolly! won four awards, andThe Great Comet won two. The productions of playsIndecent,The Little Foxes, andOslo each won two awards.[5]
The ceremony received mixed reviews, with many criticizing the performance of Spacey as host. Due to thesexual misconduct allegations against Spacey, the producers announced that it would not be submitted for the70th Primetime Emmy Awards.[6] However, the show did receive a nomination forOutstanding Lighting Design / Lighting Direction for a Variety Special.[7]
Shows that opened on Broadway during the 2016–2017 season before April 27, 2017, were eligible for consideration.[8]
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Notes
The Tony Award nominations were announced on May 2, 2017, byJane Krakowski andChristopher Jackson.[8][10]
The musicalNatasha, Pierre & The Great Comet of 1812 garnered 12 nominations, becoming the most-nominated show of the season. The revival ofHello, Dolly! earned 10 nominations, the musicalDear Evan Hansen earned nine, and the new playA Doll's House, Part 2 earned eight. New musicalsCome from Away andGroundhog Day each earned seven nominations, as did the new playOslo.[4]
The annual Meet the Nominees Press Reception took place on May 3, 2017, at theSofitel New York Hotel.[11] The annual Nominees Luncheon took place on May 23, 2017, at theRainbow Room.[12] A cocktail party was held on June 5, 2017, at the Sofitel New York Hotel to celebrate the season's Tony Honors for Excellence in the Theatre and Special Award recipients.[13]
The ceremony's presenters included:[14][15]
The following shows and performers performed on the ceremony's telecast:[16][17]
The 2017Tony Honors for Excellence were awarded to general managers Nina Lannan and Alan Wasser.[18] ActorJames Earl Jones received the season'sSpecial Tony Award for Lifetime Achievement.[19] The 2017Isabelle Stevenson Award was awarded toBaayork Lee, "for her commitment to future generations of artists through her work with the National Asian Artists Project and theatre education programs around the world."[20] A special Tony Award for Sound Design[21] was awarded to Gareth Fry and Pete Malkin forThe Encounter, following the removal of the competitive sound design awards in 2014. The season's Excellence in Theatre Education Award was awarded to drama teacherRachel Harry ofHood River Valley High School inHood River, OR.[22][23]
Sources:Playbill;[24]The New York Times[25]
∞ This marks Greenwood's 21st Tony Award nomination and first competitive win.
‡ The award is presented to the producer(s) of the musical or play.[26]
| Production | Nominations | Awards |
|---|---|---|
| Natasha, Pierre & The Great Comet of 1812 | 12 | 2 |
| Hello, Dolly! | 10 | 4 |
| Dear Evan Hansen | 9 | 6 |
| A Doll's House, Part 2 | 8 | 1 |
| Come from Away | 7 | 1 |
| Groundhog Day | 7 | 0 |
| Oslo | 7 | 2 |
| Jitney | 6 | 1 |
| The Little Foxes | 6 | 2 |
| Falsettos | 5 | 0 |
| War Paint | 4 | 0 |
| Indecent | 3 | 2 |
| Present Laughter | 3 | 1 |
| Sweat | 3 | 0 |
| Anastasia | 2 | 0 |
| Bandstand | 2 | 1 |
| The Front Page | 2 | 0 |
| Miss Saigon | 2 | 0 |
| Six Degrees of Separation | 2 | 0 |
| The Price | 1 | 0 |
| The Glass Menagerie | 1 | 0 |
| Heisenberg | 1 | 0 |
| Holiday Inn | 1 | 0 |
| The Play That Goes Wrong | 1 | 1 |
| The Present | 1 | 0 |
The show received a mixed reception from media publications. OnMetacritic, the ceremony has a weighted average score of 53 out of 100, based on 6 reviews, indicating "mixed or average reviews".[27]The Hollywood Reporter columnist David Rooney remarked, "Spacey is a brilliant actor, but warmth and humility are perhaps not his strongest suits. So opening on the defensive, with a messy mashup of songs from current-season musicals that he repurposed to head off any eventual criticism of his hosting performance, started the show on a strained note."[28]The New York Times theatre criticNeil Genzlinger commented, "Sunday night's broadcast of Broadway's annual celebration of itself had trouble figuring out what to do with Kevin Spacey, the evening's host, making use of him in ways that ranged from torturous (the opening number) to tolerable (he does pretty goodJohnny Carson andBill Clinton impressions). It fared far better when it was about the work being honored and the people who did it."[29] Cynthia Littleton fromVariety wrote, "The biggest shortcoming was host Kevin Spacey, who just didn't deliver the same kind of engaging effort as his recent predecessors. The contrast was especially sharp against last year's emcee."[30]
The Guardian columnist Alexis Soloski wrote, "TheHouse of Cards actor offered outdated Johnny Carson impressions, a Bobby Darin number and a misfiring gag aboutHillary Clinton'semails on a night of occasional shock and unforgivable schtick."[31]IndieWire theatre criticCharles Isherwood commented, "Full of allusions to previous hosts (Neil Patrick Harris, James Corden, Hugh Jackman), it seemed to drag on forever — and was not particularly enlivened by guest appearances by Stephen Colbert and Whoopi Goldberg. Perhaps funny to those in the know, it could only have been mystifying to a wider audience."[32] In addition, television critic Robert Lloyd of theLos Angeles Times remarked, "Kevin Spacey was the somewhat surprising — though certainly not unqualified — host of the 71st running of the Broadway theater-honoring Tony Awards, broadcast Sunday night from New York's Radio City Music Hall."[33]
The ceremony averaged aNielsen 4.7 ratings/11 share,[34] and was watched by 6 million viewers.[35] The ratings was a 31 percent decrease fromprevious ceremony's viewership of 8.7 million, becoming the lowest since 2012.[36]
Broadway actorsJustin Guarini, Kevin Smith Kirkwood,Okieriete Onaodowan, David Abeles, andChuck Cooper performedBoyz II Men's "It's So Hard to Say Goodbye to Yesterday" as images of theatre personalities who died in the past year were shown in the following order.[37]