Maybe Happy Ending, a rom-com musical 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 romantic relationship between two decommissioned robots, becoming a commentary on human themes and the passage of time. It won a leading six Tonys, the AP reports.
With Purpose, a drawing-room drama about an accomplished Black family exposing hypocrisy and pressures during a snowed-in gathering, Branden Jacobs-Jenkins caps a remarkable few years: In addition to winning back-to-back Tonys—his Appropriate won best play revival in 2024—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 becomes the first Black playwright to win the category since August Wilson took home the trophy in 1987 for Fences. He urged viewers to support regional theaters; Purpose was nurtured in Chicago. Young—the first Black female actor to be Tony-nominated for four consecutive years—won back-to-back Tonys with her best featured actress win for Purpose.
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, who was gunning for her seventh statuette. It caps a remarkable career pivot for Scherzinger, once the lead singer of the pop group Pussycat Dolls and a TV talent show judge.
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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, performing a medley including "My Shot," "The Schuyler Sisters," "History Has Its Eyes on You," and "The Room Where It Happens." Read more from the ceremony here, or see a list of big winners here.
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