Reporting from NEW YORK — In February, Benj Pasek and Justin Paul fell just short of Hollywood’s highest honor when “La La Land,” the Southland-set musical they penned the lyrics for, failed to win best picture at the Academy Awards.
No misses this time.
The stars shone for the composer-lyricists and book writer Steven Levenson, as “Dear Evan Hansen” nabbed the Tony Awards’ top honor of best musical at Radio City Music Hall on Sunday night. The trio’s show, an emo-pop piece about an awkward teenager who becomes an accidental hero, won over voters with a story that’s both a timeless tale of teenage anxiety and an of-the-moment examination of social media.
Ben Platt, who plays the title character — and became Broadway’s biggest sensation this season— won the Tony for best actor in a musical. The show won six Tonys, including for book, score, orchestration and featured actress.
“At its core our musical is about wanting to belong, said producer Stacey Mindich in accepting the prize. “You have been seen and heard around the world,” she said, addressing fans who have responded to the production.
If last year was a coronation for the blockbuster musical “Hamilton,” this year’s Tonys was more even-handed with notable wins for a number of shows, including the best play “Oslo.”
FULL COVERAGE: Tony Awards 2017 »
“Evan Hansen” earned the U.S. theater’s top honor in what many regarded as the deepest musical season in recent memory including such heralded shows as “Come From Away” and “Groundhog Day.” With its win, “Evan Hansen” joins a short but notable list of intimate pieces, including “Once” and “Fun Home,” to take the top prize in recent years.
“We hoped to write a show where people looking for a home can find one,” Paul said of “Hansen,” which with humble roots in Washington, D.C., and off-Broadway was hardly even guaranteed to get to Broadway.
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Producer Stacey Mindich, at the mike, and the cast of “Dear Evan Hansen” accept the award for best musical at the conclusion of the 2017 Tony Awards at Radio City Music Hall in New York City.
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Josh Groban and the cast of “Natasha, Pierre & the Great Comet of 1812” perform at the 71st Tony Awards.
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Tina Fey, presenting at the Tony Awards
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Stephen Colbert speaks during the 2017 Tony Awards.
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The cast of “Bandstand” performs during the 2017 Tony Awards at Radio City Music Hall.
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Kevin Spacey, left, Michael Kelly and Robin Wright appear as their characters from “House of Cards” as they present Lin-Manuel Miranda with the envelope for best musical.
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The cast of “Bandstand” performs at the 71st Tony Awards.
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Jill Biden introduces a performance by the cast of “Bandstand.”
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The cast of “Bandstand” performs at the 71st Tony Awards in New York.
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Ben Platt, an L.A. native, accepts the award for lead actor in a musical for “Dear Evan Hansen.”
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The mix of performers, presenters and winners backstage. From left, Josh Groban, Allison Janney, Rachel Bloom, Christopher Jackson and “Come From Away’s” Tony-winning director, Christopher Ashley.
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“Hamilton” creator Lin-Manuel Miranda, last year’s big Tony winner, announces the best musical prize the 2017 awards.
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Josh Gad presents the educators awards at the 71st Tony Awards.
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Rebecca Taichman accepts the award for direction of a play for “Indecent.”
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Andy Karl and the cast of “Groundhog Day The Musical” perform at the 71st Tony Awards.
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Christopher Ashley accepts the award for direction of a musical for “Come From Away.”
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Mimi Lien accepts the award for scenic design of a musical for “Natasha, Pierre & the Great Comet of 1812.”
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The Rockettes perform “New York, New York” at the 71st Tony Awards.
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Rachel Bay Jones accepts the featured actress in a musical award for “Dear Evan Hansen.”
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Bette Midler presents the award for performance by a leading actress in a play.
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Patti LuPone, left, and Christine Ebersole perform from the musical “War Paint” during the 2017 Tony Awards.
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Andy Blankenbuehler accpets the award for choreography for “Bandstand.”
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Uma Thurman at the 2017 Tony Awards.
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David Hyde Pierce performs the song “Penny in My Pocket” from the Broadway revival of “Hello, Dolly!”
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Choreographer-director Tommy Tune at Radio City Music Hall.
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Patina Miller, left, and Sara Bareilles speak during the 2017 Tony Awards.
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Host Kevin Spacey impersonates Johnny Carson.
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Kevin Kline accepts the award for his lead performance in the play “Present Laughter.”
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Christopher Akerlind accepts the award for lighting design for the play “Indecent.”
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Alex Lacamoire accepts the award for the “Dear Evan Hansen” orchestrations.
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Ben Platt, who portrays the title character in “Dear Evan Hansen,” performs the song “Waving Through a Window” during the Tony telecast.
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Betsy Wolfe, left, and Tracie Thoms perform with the cast of “Falsettos.”
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Gareth Fry, left, and Pete Malkin, receive a special Tony Award for their sound design for “The Encounter.”
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Cynthia Nixon, left, accepts the Tony Award for featured actress in a play for “Lillian Hellman’s The Little Foxes.” The handoff is by presenters Olivia Wilde and Tom Sturridge.
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Scarlett Johansson presents the award for featured performance by an actor in a play.
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Jenn Colella of “Come From Away” links arms with Rockettes during a production number at the 71st Tony Awards.
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Justin Paul, left, and Benj Pasek accept the original score award for “Dear Evan Hansen.”
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James Earl Jones accepts the special Tony award for lifetime achievement in the theater at the 71st Tony Awards.
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The cast of “Come From Away” performs onstage during the 2017 Tony Awards at Radio City Music Hall in New York City.
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The cast of “Miss Saigon” performs onstage during the 2017 Tony Awards.
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Whoopi Goldberg and host Kevin Spacey perform onstage during the 2017 Tony Awards at Radio City Music Hall in New York City.
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Stephen Colbert and host Kevin Spacey perform onstage during the 2017 Tony Awards.
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Host Kevin Spacey, center, performs the intro to the 2017 Tony Awards.
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Host Kevin Spacey during the intro to the 2017 Tony Awards.
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Host Kevin Spacey arrives at the 71st Tony Awards at Radio City Music Hall in New York City.
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Anna Kendrick
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Sutton Foster
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Uma Thurman
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Presenter Scarlett Johansson arrives at the 71st Tony Awards at Radio City Music Hall.
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Glenn Close, who’s on Broadway in a revival of “Sunset Boulevard,” arrives at the 71st Tony Awards.
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Olivia Wilde attends the 2017 Tony Awards.
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Bette Midler, nominated in the musical-lead-actress category, arrives at the 71st Tony Awards.
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Jason Sudekis
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John Legend and Chrissy Teigen
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Nominee Cynthia Nixon and presenter Orlando Bloom arrive at the 2017 Tony Awards.
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It’s a selfie moment for actors, from left, Nick Kroll, John Mulaney and Darren Criss on the red carpet at the 2017 Tony Awards.
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Actor Jonathan Groff
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Eva Noblezada, nominated in the lead actress category for the revival of the musical “Miss Saigon.”
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Tina Fey
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Josh Groban, nominated in the lead actor category for the musical “Natasha, Pierre & the Great Comet of 1812.”
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Actress Sally Field
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Actress Cynthia Erivo
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L.A. native and lead actor nominee for the musical “Dear Evan Hansen” Ben Platt arrives at the 2017 Tony Awards at Radio City Music Hall.
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Laurie Metcalf, lead actress nominee for the play “A Doll’s House, Part 2”
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John Lithgow.
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Christine Ebersole, left, Baayork Lee and Courtney Reed.
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Jenn Colella.
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Mark Hamill.
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Actors John Mulaney, left, and Nick Kroll.
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Patina Miller, left, Steven Levenson and Cobie Smulders.
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Christian Borle.
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Andrew Rannells.
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Andy Karl, a musical-lead-actor Tony nominee for “Groundhog Day,” arrives at the awards with his actress-singer wife, Orfeh.
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Jordan Roth, president of the Jujamcyn Theaters on Broadway, attends the 2017 Tony Awards.
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Denis Arndt, a leading actor nominee for the play “Heisenberg,” at the Tonys. He’s headed to L.A. this month to perform the play at the Mark Taper Forum.
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Members of the Radio City Rockettes.
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The entrance to the 2017 Tony Awards’ red carpet at Radio City Music Hall in New York City.
(Angela Weiss / AFP/Getty Images) Platt, a Los Angeles native and the son of film and theater (“Wicked”) producer Marc Platt, thanked his family and drew on the musical’s heartfelt core in his acceptance speech.
“You taught me you have to be a decent human being to be a decent artist,” Platt said, addressing his father. He added a plea to idiosyncratic types in keeping with the theme of his show. “Don’t change,” he said, “The things that make you strange are the things that make you powerful.”
But if the night celebrated the outsider, it was the consummate showbiz insider who was its biggest star. The evening was a coronation for “Hello, Dolly!” the Jerry Zaks-directed revival that brought Bette Midler back to the Broadway stage. The show won four Tonys, including revival of a musical, featured actor Gavin Creel, and for costume. Midler took lead actress in a musical, her first-ever Tony win.
Midler has waited a long time for her award — and she was bound and determined to make the most of the moment.
Midler marked the occasion with a rat-a-tat riff that included her thanking “all the Tony voters, many of which I’ve actually dated” and noting that “I can’t remember the last time I had so much smoke blown up my (butt) but there is no more room.” The acceptance speech went well beyond the allotted time, but Midler pressed on, saying “shut that crap off,” to the orchestra music attempting to play her off.
The surprising speech did not match the upsets from the podium. Many of the awards followed form, as J.T. Rogers’ Middle East-peace drama “Oslo” and “Jitney,” August Wilson’s American Century cycle classic about livery drivers in Pittsburgh, won best play and best revival of a play, respectively; both were favorites.
Still, there were some whoppers, “Oslo’s” Michael Aronov, playing an Israeli foreign-ministry official, bested Danny DeVito in featured actor in a play. Making his Broadway debut, DeVito was favored as a slippery furniture salesman in the revival of Arthur Miller’s “The Price.”
In direction “Indecent’s” Rebecca Taichman and “Come From Away”s Christopher Ashley were both unexpected winners in play and musical, for their shows about 20th century artistic oppression and post-9/11 global community, respectively.
A genuinely shocked and breathless Taichman talked about the play’s message in accepting the award: “This is about making art when one is in great danger.”
It was a season when Broadway was politicized following the election of President Trump and the stormy visit of then-vice-president elect Mike Pence to “Hamilton.” The Tony Award show on CBS was expected to go heavy on ideological statements, but it only went intermittently to that well. But there were a few memorable moments.
CBS personality Stephen Colbert made several appearances, including one in which he riffed on Trump. “This Broadway production is supposed to have a four-year run but reviews have not been kind,” he said, to applause in the room. Cynthia Nixon, accepting the featured actress in a play prize for her repertory turn in “Little Foxes,” cited playwright Lillian Hellman’s line about people who stand back during injustice. “All my love and respect and undying gratitude goes out to all the people refusing to just stand,” she said, also to loud cheers.
And in a kind of bookend moment to the Pence fracas, Jill and Joe Biden’s presence was noted and met with a standing ovation in the Radio City theater during a pre-show segment. Jill Biden had come to promote a veteran’s charity, which she later talked about in introducing a number from the PTSD-themed musical “Bandstand.”
The Tonys come at a time of crossover in between the theater and movie worlds, when musicals on Broadway are more cinematic and musical films are more common.
Still, some distinctions remain.
Backstage, a reporter asked Pasek and Paul to describe the feeling of being here as opposed to the Oscars.
“This is sacred ground to us,” Pasek said. “Nothing compares to this.”
The Tonys were returning to their regular home at Radio City after a one-year interlude at the more intimate, or cramped, space at the Beacon Theatre uptown. That made for a more formal show — there weren’t the same bits done around the theater and even outside the theater, as James Corden did last year. The show also had a more celebratory feel compared to last year’s ceremony, which followed the Orlando nightclub shooting by less than 24 hours.
Host Kevin Spacey took an unorthodox approach to the job, trotting out impersonations — Bill Clinton, Johnny Carson and his own “House of Cards” Frank Underwood character — in lieu of more conventional hosting technique. He began the night with a Billy Crystal-like medley — the Oscar veteran even appeared in a screen bubble of wisdom — in which he self-deprecatingly took shots at his own host undesirability. The routine featured many riffs on nominated shows and slayed in the room, even as many of their nuances went over the heads, or provoked annoyance, from those following on TV and social media.
But Spacey had the ad lib of the evening when, appearing as Underwood at the end of the telecast, he said he “wanted to get the hell out of here before Bette Midler thanked anyone else.”
Patrick Pacheco contributed this report.
steve.zeitchik@latimes.com
Twitter: @ZeitchikLAT
