“A Strange Loop,” “The Lehman Trilogy” take home top prizes at 75th Annual Tony Awards

NEW YORK — “A Strange Loop” and “The Lehman Trilogy” took home the top prizes at the 75th Annual Tony Awards on Sunday night.

This year’s Tonys were a celebration of resilience through COVID and gratitude to be back.

“A Strange Loop,” a show about a Black, gay writer’s struggles to create his own musical and break free of self-doubt, won the Tony for Best Musical. Its creator, Michael R. Jackson, was given a standing ovation when he won the Tony for Best Book of a Musical.

“I started writing this musical when I was 23 years old. I’m 41 years. I’m old as hell,” Jackson said. “I felt unseen, I felt unheard, I felt misunderstood, and I just wanted to create a little bit of a life raft for myself as a gay, Black man to try and just get through the day.”

A production highlight from the acclaimed new musical “MJ,” about Michael Jackson, was introduced by the late star’s children, Prince and Paris Jackson. The show’s star, Myles Frost, won for Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role in a Musical.

“I am so honored and so blessed and so grateful,” he said.

The landmark Stephen Sondheim musical “Company,” a quintessentially New York City story of love, marriage and friendship, won Best Revival of a Musical, plus Tonys for featured performers Matt Doyle and Patti LuPone.

“Thank you to the stage managers, the backstage crews, the front of house,” LuPone said. “A huge gratitude to all the understudies across all of the stages in New York and to all the COVID safety people.”

Director Marianne Elliott in her acceptance speech thanked Sondheim, who died in November.

“To have collaborated with him so closely, to have made a show about New York on Broadway with New York’s most important theater-maker of my lifetime is a privilege that I never would’ve imagined or even dared to imagine,” she said.

Best Revival of a Play went to “Take Me Out,” about a Major League Baseball center-fielder coming out as gay. Jesse Tyler Ferguson won his first Tony in the featured actor category for the show.

“So to stand in front of this community that I admire and love so much, just means so much to me. I cannot believe I get to do this for a living. Mom and Dad, thank you for letting me for move to New York when I was 17 years old. I told you it would be OK,” Tyler Ferguson said.

This year’s Tonys were a celebration of resilience through COVID and gratitude to be back.

Exuberance filled the stage when a rousing musical theater standard song was performed by Hugh Jackman, Sutton Foster, and the cast of “The Music Man.”

Among the other Tony winners were Joaquina Kalukango, who won Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role in a Musical for “Paradise Square.”

“Thank you to my incredible company. This is ours. Look at what we have created,” she said.

“The Lehman Trilogy” won Best Play and one of its lead actors, Simon Russell Beale, took home a Tony in his category.

An eventful inspiring night at Radio City music Hall.

Check below for all the winners, performances, red carpet interviews and more.