2017 awards ceremony
The 71st Annual Tony Awards were held on June 11, 2017, to recognize achievement in Broadway productions during the 2016–17 season. The ceremony was held at Radio City Music Hall in New York City, and was broadcast live by CBS. Kevin Spacey served as host.
The musical "Natasha, Pierre &amp; The Great Comet of 1812" led the nominations with 12, while the play with the most nominations was "A Doll's House, Part 2", with eight. At the ceremony, "Dear Evan Hansen" won six awards, including Best Musical, becoming the production with the most wins of the season. 23-year-old Ben Platt, who played the title character, became the youngest solo winner for Best Actor in a Leading Role in a Musical. 21-year-old Eva Noblezada received her first nomination for Best Actress in a Leading Role in a Musical for her Broadway debut as Kim in "Miss Saigon", becoming one of the youngest nominees in Best Actress in a Musical category. The Bette Midler-led revival of "Hello, Dolly!" won four awards, and "The Great Comet" won two. The productions of plays "Indecent", "The Little Foxes", and "Oslo" each won two awards.
The ceremony received mixed reviews, with many criticizing the performance of Spacey as host. Due to the sexual misconduct allegations against Spacey, the producers announced that it would not be submitted for the 70th Primetime Emmy Awards. However, the show did receive a nomination for Outstanding Lighting Design / Lighting Direction for a Variety Special.
Eligibility.
Shows that opened on Broadway during the 2016–2017 season before April 27, 2017, were eligible for consideration.
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Notes
Awards events.
Nominations.
The Tony Award nominations were announced on May 2, 2017, by Jane Krakowski and Christopher Jackson.
The musical "Natasha, Pierre &amp; The Great Comet of 1812" garnered 12 nominations, becoming the most-nominated show of the season. The revival of "Hello, Dolly!" earned 10 nominations, the musical "Dear Evan Hansen" earned nine, and the new play "A Doll's House, Part 2" earned eight. New musicals "Come from Away" and "Groundhog Day" each earned seven nominations, as did the new play "Oslo".
Other events.
The annual Meet the Nominees Press Reception took place on May 3, 2017, at the Sofitel New York Hotel. The annual Nominees Luncheon took place on May 23, 2017, at the Rainbow Room. 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.
Ceremony.
Presenters.
The ceremony's presenters included:
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Performances.
The following shows and performers performed on the ceremony's telecast:
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Non-competitive awards.
The 2017 Tony Honors for Excellence were awarded to general managers Nina Lannan and Alan Wasser. Actor James Earl Jones received the season's Special Tony Award for Lifetime Achievement. The 2017 Isabelle Stevenson Award was awarded to Baayork 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." A special Tony Award for Sound Design was awarded to Gareth Fry and Pete Malkin for "The Encounter", following the removal of the competitive sound design awards in 2014. The season's Excellence in Theatre Education Award was awarded to drama teacher Rachel Harry of Hood River Valley High School in Hood River, OR.
Winners and nominees.
Sources: "Playbill"; "The New York Times"
∞ 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.
Reception.
The show received a mixed reception from media publications. On Metacritic, the ceremony has a weighted average score of 53 out of 100, based on 6 reviews, indicating "mixed or average reviews". "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." "The New York Times" theatre critic Neil 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 good Johnny Carson and Bill Clinton impressions). It fared far better when it was about the work being honored and the people who did it." Cynthia Littleton from "Variety" 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."
"The Guardian" columnist Alexis Soloski wrote, "The "House of Cards" actor offered outdated Johnny Carson impressions, a Bobby Darin number and a misfiring gag about Hillary Clinton's emails on a night of occasional shock and unforgivable schtick." "IndieWire" theatre critic Charles 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." In addition, television critic Robert Lloyd of the "Los 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."
Ratings.
The ceremony averaged a Nielsen 4.7 ratings/11 share, and was watched by 6 million viewers. The ratings was a 31 percent decrease from previous ceremony's viewership of 8.7 million, becoming the lowest since 2012.
"In Memoriam".
Broadway actors Justin Guarini, Kevin Smith Kirkwood, Okieriete Onaodowan, David Abeles, and Chuck Cooper performed Boyz 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.
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References.
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