‘Contact,’ ‘Copenhagen’ Big Winners at Tonys

“Contact,” the Broadway hit that eschewed the traditional definition of musical theater--singing, live music, an original score--received the Tony Award for best new musical Sunday night.

Susan Stroman, who had called her show, the odds-on favorite, a “dance-play,” fittingly won for best choreography--but not for best director.

That award went to Michael Blakemore for directing the revival of “Kiss Me, Kate.” The British director was the evening’s only double winner, taking home the award for directing “Copenhagen” as well.

The annual awards ceremony at Radio City Music Hall was broadcast live on PBS and CBS with Rosie O’Donnell, the television talk show host and Broadway booster, back as host for the third time after a year’s hiatus. Nathan Lane co-hosted.

It was an unusual year: “Copenhagen,” Michael Frayn’s thought-provoking play about a 1941 meeting between two Nobel-prize winning physicists that nervous types worried would be too brainy for Broadway audiences, won for best new play. “Aida,” Disney’s latest stage blockbuster, was not nominated for best musical, but received the Tony for its score by Elton John and Tim Rice.

In winning the Tony for leading actress in a play for “The Real Thing,” Jennifer Ehle beat out her mother, Rosemary Harris, who was nominated for “Waiting in the Wings.” Blair Brown, who had starred in the musical “James Joyce’s The Dead,” but wasn’t nominated, won for her supporting actress role in “Copenhagen.”

Roy Dotrice, the British actor who played a crusty pig farmer in “A Moon for the Misbegotten,” won his first Tony at age 77. At the other end of the age spectrum, 25-year-old Heather Headley won her first Tony for leading actress in a musical for the title role in “Aida,” in which she plays a captive Nubian princess. Referring to the lukewarm reception “Aida” had from the critics, Headley said she was accepting her Tony “for the cast.”

Headley’s victory ended three-time winner Audra McDonald’s perfect record. Her fourth nomination had been for “Marie Christine,” a musical that won none of its five nominations.

In one of the most closely contested races of the evening, Cole Porter’s “Kiss Me, Kate,” which had received the Tony’s first award for best musical in 1949, won best musical revival, beating out Meredith Willson’s “The Music Man.” “Kate” received 12 nominations--the most--and won four, including for Brian Stokes Mitchell, its leading actor. “Music Man,” nominated in eight categories, was shut out, as was “The Wild Party.” “Aida,” on the other hand, won four of its five nominations.

The Tony for leading actor in a play went to Stephen Dillane in “The Real Thing.” “It’s turned out to be a big night for us,” said Dillane, accepting his first Tony. The play by Tom Stoppard won four of its five nominations, one less than when it was first on Broadway in 1984.

TV soap queen Susan Lucci (who made her own Broadway debut earlier this season as a vacation replacement in “Annie Get Your Gun”) announced that Boyd Gaines won the Tony for best featured actor in a musical for his work in “Contact.” It was Gaines’ third Tony. Karen Ziemba won her first Tony for featured actress in the musical, beating out her co-star, Deborah Yates, and Eartha Kitt, who performed a lusty selection from “The Wild Party” at the ceremony.

Anita Waxman and Elizabeth Williams, producers of “The Real Thing,” received the award for best revival of a play from Patrick Stewart, who had recently had a run-in with his own producers for “The Ride Down Mount Morgan.” After being forced to publicly apologize last week for criticizing the Shubert Organization for its lack of support to the show, he asked the Tony audience, “What is there to say?” and then answered his own question: “Nothing.”