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'Moulin Rouge' musical dominates pandemic delayed Tony Awards

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Jill Serjeant, Reuters

<div class="embed-wrap"><figure data-feedback="fb:likes,fb:comments"><img alt="Bill Damaschke and Carmen Pavlovic accept the award for Best Musical for " moulin="" rouge="" src="http://sa.kapamilya.com/absnews/abscbnnews/media/2021/afp/09/27/awards.jpg"/><figcaption>Bill Damaschke and Carmen Pavlovic accept the award for Best Musical for &quot;Moulin Rouge! The Musical&quot; from Chita Rivera and Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber onstage during the 74th Annual Tony Awards at Winter Garden Theater on September 26, 2021 in New York City. <em>Theo Wargo, Getty Images for Tony Awards Productions/AFP</em></figcaption></figure></div><p>AIDS play &quot;The Inheritance&quot; and musical &quot;Moulin Rouge!&quot; won the top honors at Broadway&#x27;s Tony Awards on Sunday in a four-hour ceremony that promoted the return of live theater and called for better opportunities for Black writers and performers.</p><p>&quot;Tonight feels like a homecoming,&quot; said host Audra McDonald. &quot;The lights are on, we are here, we are back.&quot;</p><p>The annual awards show was never held in 2020 because of the coronavirus pandemic that shut down live performances for 18 months.</p><p>Many of the big shows, including &quot;Hamilton,&quot; &quot;The Lion King,&quot; and &quot;Wicked&quot; had emotional reopenings earlier this month marked by tears and joy both on and off stage. Audiences must be fully vaccinated and masks are required.</p><p>&quot;It&#x27;s been over a year but the Tonys are here,&quot; sang &quot;Hamilton&quot; star Leslie Odom Jr, opening the TV special called &quot;Broadway&#x27;s Back&quot; that featured appearances by stars ranging from John Legend and Jake Gyllenhaal to Chita Rivera and Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber.</p><p>&quot;Moulin Rouge! The Musical,&quot; based on the 2001 movie, won 10 awards, including best musical, and for lead actor Aaron Tveit.</p><p>Carmen Pavlovic, a co-producer of &quot;Moulin Rouge!,&quot; said every show deserved to get an award after the punishing last 18 months, including &quot;the shows that opened, the shows that closed not to return, the shows that nearly opened, and of course the shows that paused and were fortunate enough to be reborn.&quot;</p><p>&quot;The Inheritance,&quot; a portrait of gay life in the 21st century, was named best play and won 2 other Tonys. It also brought an impassioned appeal from its playwright Matthew Lopez, who is of Puerto Rican heritage.</p><p>&quot;This is the 74th Tony Awards and yet I am only the first Latinate writer to win in this category,&quot; said Lopez. &quot;This must change. We are a vibrant community ... We have so many stories to tell. They are inside of us, aching to come out.&quot;</p><p>&quot;A Soldier&#x27;s Play,&quot; about the murder of a black officer on a U.S. army base in 1944,&quot; was voted best play revival. Yet it was a disappointing night for &quot;Slave Play,&quot; a provocative show about race and sexuality that went into Sunday&#x27;s ceremony with a leading 12 nominations, but won none of them.</p><p>&quot;The table&#x27;s got to be bigger,&quot; said Kenny Leon, director of &quot;A Soldier&#x27;s Play,&quot; saying Broadway needs to do better to elevate Black voices.</p><p>The anti-racism non-profit Broadway Advocacy Coalition that fights to make theatre more diverse, was given an honorary award.</p><p>The TV special saw live song and dance performances from many shows, including &quot;Jagged Litle Pill,&quot; &quot;Ain&#x27;t Too Proud,&quot; &quot;American Utopia,&quot; and Idina Menzel and Kristen Chenoweth, the original stars of &quot;Wicked.&quot;</p><p>&quot;A Christmas Carol,&quot; a stage adaptation with music of the Charles Dickens novel, won five awards, while newcomer Adrienne Warren won best actress in a musical for playing rock singer Tina Turner in &quot;Tina - The Tina Turner Musical.&quot;</p><p>None of the Tony-nominated plays are currently playing on Broadway or plan to return, after closing because of the pandemic or finishing their runs shortly before it broke. </p><p>Following is a list of winners in key categories.</p><div><strong>BEST PLAY</strong></div><p>&quot;The Inheritance&quot;</p><div><strong>BEST MUSICAL</strong></div><p>&quot;Moulin Rouge! The Musical</p><div><strong>BEST REVIVAL OF A PLAY</strong></div><p>&quot;A Soldier&#x27;s Play&quot;</p><div><strong>BEST ACTOR, PLAY</strong></div><p>Andrew Burnap, &quot;The Inheritance&quot;</p><div><strong>BEST ACTRESS, PLAY</strong></div><p>Mary-Louise Parker, &quot;The Sound Inside&quot;</p><div><strong>BEST ACTOR, MUSICAL</strong></div><p>Aaron Tveit, &quot;Moulin Rouge! The Musical&quot;</p><div><strong>BEST ACTRESS, MUSICAL</strong></div><p>Adrienne Warren, &quot;Tina - The Tina Turner Musical&quot;</p><div><strong>BEST ORIGINAL SCORE</strong></div><p>&quot;A Christmas Carol&quot;</p><div><strong>BEST BOOK OF A MUSICAL</strong></div><p>&quot;Jagged Little Pill&quot;</p>

AIDS play 'The Inheritance' and musical 'Moulin Rouge!' won the top honors at Broadway's Tony Awards on Sunday in a four-hour ceremony that promoted the return of live theater and called for better opportunities for Black writers and performers.

'Moulin Rouge' musical dominates pandemic delayed Tony Awards

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'Moulin Rouge' musical dominates pandemic delayed Tony Awards

Jill Serjeant,

Reuters

Published September 27, 2021 12:00 PM PHT

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Tony Awards

theater

Broadway

musical

Moulin Rouge

The Inheritance

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