Tony Awards 2025: Nicole Scherzinger and Sarah Snook among big winners as host Cynthia Erivo shines
'Your love and your support for me and our beautiful children, combined with the miracle of working on something as magical as Maybe Happy Ending, has been and will always be award enough,' he said.
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Sydney Morning Herald
12 hours ago
- Sydney Morning Herald
These are the best and worst moments from the 2025 Tony Awards
Best placement: Cynthia Erivo's balcony bit It's become an awards-show staple: The host schleps up to the balcony seats to mingle with us regular folks and maybe tell a joke or two. Erivo's ascent at Radio City was worth the climb. In a night of a thousand costume changes, her pink candy wrapper of a dress was a zany delight. And the atmosphere up there lent itself to deft comedy – about her height, about Abraham Lincoln and, best of all, about why sitting far away was the best place to watch Jonathan (He Spits When He Sings) Groff perform: 'So please welcome the man who makes everyone wet …' – SH Best nightclub act: Groff as Bobby Darin Showmanship is distinct from acting. It's an elusive, unfairly distributed quality: You have it, or you don't. Groff's dynamite medley – Mack the Knife, That's All and Once in a Lifetime – proved he has it. In this context, merely delivering a song well isn't enough — you have to sell it. It's something that Darin, the subject of Groff's current vehicle, Just in Time, had. At Radio City on Sunday, Groff moved like a man possessed by the need to entertain, straddling a seated Keanu Reeves' head and driven by the rhythm of mad bongos. Please, let him host the Tonys next year. – EV Loading Worst eyeful: Too many pixels This season, virtual scenery reached critical mass on Broadway, in Sunset Boulevard, The Picture of Dorian Gray, Redwood and Maybe Happy Ending. The Tony Awards telecast followed suit, ditching traditional flats, drops and clunky wagons in favour of digital backgrounds that ultimately looked cheesy. Literally cheesy-looking in the case of the excerpt from Operation Mincemeat, a totally old-tech musical performed during the ceremony in front of yellow-washed screens that made the actors look as if they'd fallen into a vat of fondue. Why would the producers of a theatre awards show make such an anti-theatrical choice? For the same reason some of the less artful shows do: It's faster, cheaper and, for audiences who have to be pried away from their own screens, perhaps more enticing. – JG Best homecoming: Asian and Asian American artists win big It was a historic evening for a troupe of Asian and Asian American theatre artists, including Nicole Scherzinger, Francis Jue and Darren Criss, who all won performance Tonys. Marco Paguia also received a Tony for his Buena Vista Social Club orchestrations, and Hue Park won for writing the lyrics and co-writing the book for Maybe Happy Ending, the evening's breakout success. In their speeches, several of the artists made reference to feeling left out or ignored before finding a home in the theatre. Scherzinger, who noted her Filipina, Native Hawaiian and Ukrainian ancestry, said, 'I always felt like I didn't belong, but you all have made me feel like I belong and I have come home at last.' – ALEXIS SOLOSKI Best sell: Making the plays pop For all their glamour, and their genuine recognition of talent, the Tonys are an industry advertisement — meant not only to sell tickets in New York, but also to give the nominated shows a life beyond Broadway. Musicals, with their colourful numbers, have always had an advantage in making their case for that. Plays, by comparison, have tended not to translate. But there was real charm to the way this year's best play nominees were introduced. With a framed screen of video clips playing upstage, a Tony-nominated star from each show spoke with an insider's affection while giving a synopsis of it: Marjan Neshat for English, Sadie Sink for John Proctor Is the Villain, Cole Escola for Oh, Mary!, Harry Lennix for Purpose, Laura Donnelly for The Hills of California. It was easy to imagine would-be producers and audience members out there, their interest suddenly piqued. – LAURA COLLINS-HUGHES Best 'sing-off': Cynthia Erivo's My Way It's always a delicate matter: how to usher off winners whose speeches go too long. A clever step up from canned elevator music: Erivo singing a passage from the standard My Way, popularised by Frank Sinatra. When Kara Young, accepting her award for Purpose, was still in the thick of her extensive list of thank-yous to those who had made her back-to-back featured actress in a play wins possible, it was a gentle balm to hear 'And now, the end is near / And so I face the final curtain …' – SARAH BAHR Loading Worst placement: Preshow spot for book and score awards Not every scene deserves a spotlight, but relegating the book and score awards to the Tonys preshow felt at least a little rude. What is a musical without its songs? Or its occasionally effortful patter between songs? (And is dance really an also-ran, too?) At the 2025 Tonys, a win for Maybe Happy Ending was practically assured after its wins for book and score, though viewers watching only the main broadcast would never have known this. Couldn't we swap out a drug ad or a few host jokes to show these prizes on the main stage? – AS Best farewell to cynicism: Hester's open heart In the World War II caper Operation Mincemeat, Jak Malone's big song, Dear Bill, is nearly six minutes long. It's a major reason he won a featured-actor Tony, because that is the moment when his character — a middle-aged British intelligence secretary named Hester — opens her wounded heart to the audience. 'They weep for her,' Malone said in his speech, 'they invest in her, they love her for her old romantic heart. And if you watched our show and found yourself believing in Hester, well, then I am so glad to tell you that, intentionally or otherwise, you might have just bid farewell to cynicism, to outdated ideas, to that rotten old binary, and opened yourself up to a world that is already out there in glorious Technicolor and isn't going away anytime soon.' – LCH
The Age
12 hours ago
- The Age
These are the best and worst moments from the 2025 Tony Awards
Best placement: Cynthia Erivo's balcony bit It's become an awards-show staple: The host schleps up to the balcony seats to mingle with us regular folks and maybe tell a joke or two. Erivo's ascent at Radio City was worth the climb. In a night of a thousand costume changes, her pink candy wrapper of a dress was a zany delight. And the atmosphere up there lent itself to deft comedy – about her height, about Abraham Lincoln and, best of all, about why sitting far away was the best place to watch Jonathan (He Spits When He Sings) Groff perform: 'So please welcome the man who makes everyone wet …' – SH Best nightclub act: Groff as Bobby Darin Showmanship is distinct from acting. It's an elusive, unfairly distributed quality: You have it, or you don't. Groff's dynamite medley – Mack the Knife, That's All and Once in a Lifetime – proved he has it. In this context, merely delivering a song well isn't enough — you have to sell it. It's something that Darin, the subject of Groff's current vehicle, Just in Time, had. At Radio City on Sunday, Groff moved like a man possessed by the need to entertain, straddling a seated Keanu Reeves' head and driven by the rhythm of mad bongos. Please, let him host the Tonys next year. – EV Loading Worst eyeful: Too many pixels This season, virtual scenery reached critical mass on Broadway, in Sunset Boulevard, The Picture of Dorian Gray, Redwood and Maybe Happy Ending. The Tony Awards telecast followed suit, ditching traditional flats, drops and clunky wagons in favour of digital backgrounds that ultimately looked cheesy. Literally cheesy-looking in the case of the excerpt from Operation Mincemeat, a totally old-tech musical performed during the ceremony in front of yellow-washed screens that made the actors look as if they'd fallen into a vat of fondue. Why would the producers of a theatre awards show make such an anti-theatrical choice? For the same reason some of the less artful shows do: It's faster, cheaper and, for audiences who have to be pried away from their own screens, perhaps more enticing. – JG Best homecoming: Asian and Asian American artists win big It was a historic evening for a troupe of Asian and Asian American theatre artists, including Nicole Scherzinger, Francis Jue and Darren Criss, who all won performance Tonys. Marco Paguia also received a Tony for his Buena Vista Social Club orchestrations, and Hue Park won for writing the lyrics and co-writing the book for Maybe Happy Ending, the evening's breakout success. In their speeches, several of the artists made reference to feeling left out or ignored before finding a home in the theatre. Scherzinger, who noted her Filipina, Native Hawaiian and Ukrainian ancestry, said, 'I always felt like I didn't belong, but you all have made me feel like I belong and I have come home at last.' – ALEXIS SOLOSKI Best sell: Making the plays pop For all their glamour, and their genuine recognition of talent, the Tonys are an industry advertisement — meant not only to sell tickets in New York, but also to give the nominated shows a life beyond Broadway. Musicals, with their colourful numbers, have always had an advantage in making their case for that. Plays, by comparison, have tended not to translate. But there was real charm to the way this year's best play nominees were introduced. With a framed screen of video clips playing upstage, a Tony-nominated star from each show spoke with an insider's affection while giving a synopsis of it: Marjan Neshat for English, Sadie Sink for John Proctor Is the Villain, Cole Escola for Oh, Mary!, Harry Lennix for Purpose, Laura Donnelly for The Hills of California. It was easy to imagine would-be producers and audience members out there, their interest suddenly piqued. – LAURA COLLINS-HUGHES Best 'sing-off': Cynthia Erivo's My Way It's always a delicate matter: how to usher off winners whose speeches go too long. A clever step up from canned elevator music: Erivo singing a passage from the standard My Way, popularised by Frank Sinatra. When Kara Young, accepting her award for Purpose, was still in the thick of her extensive list of thank-yous to those who had made her back-to-back featured actress in a play wins possible, it was a gentle balm to hear 'And now, the end is near / And so I face the final curtain …' – SARAH BAHR Loading Worst placement: Preshow spot for book and score awards Not every scene deserves a spotlight, but relegating the book and score awards to the Tonys preshow felt at least a little rude. What is a musical without its songs? Or its occasionally effortful patter between songs? (And is dance really an also-ran, too?) At the 2025 Tonys, a win for Maybe Happy Ending was practically assured after its wins for book and score, though viewers watching only the main broadcast would never have known this. Couldn't we swap out a drug ad or a few host jokes to show these prizes on the main stage? – AS Best farewell to cynicism: Hester's open heart In the World War II caper Operation Mincemeat, Jak Malone's big song, Dear Bill, is nearly six minutes long. It's a major reason he won a featured-actor Tony, because that is the moment when his character — a middle-aged British intelligence secretary named Hester — opens her wounded heart to the audience. 'They weep for her,' Malone said in his speech, 'they invest in her, they love her for her old romantic heart. And if you watched our show and found yourself believing in Hester, well, then I am so glad to tell you that, intentionally or otherwise, you might have just bid farewell to cynicism, to outdated ideas, to that rotten old binary, and opened yourself up to a world that is already out there in glorious Technicolor and isn't going away anytime soon.' – LCH
Yahoo
12 hours ago
- Yahoo
Scooter Braun talks Taylor Swift, Justin Bieber on podcast
(NewsNation) — Scooter Braun revealed his thoughts on Taylor Swift and Justin Bieber on a podcast episode released on Monday. 43-year-old Braun appeared on 'The Diary of a CEO' podcast on June 9 and spoke about Justin Bieber and Taylor Swift. Swift and Braun had a falling out in 2019 after he purchased Big Machine Records. When she released her first six albums under the label, she gave the label ownership of the recordings. When Braun purchased Big Machine Records, Swift was reportedly not given an opportunity to purchase those recordings. At the time, the singer had released a statement, saying: 'Scooter has stripped me of my life's work, that I wasn't given an opportunity to buy. Essentially, my musical legacy is about to lie in the hands of someone who tried to dismantle it.' Justin Baldoni countersuit against Blake Lively, Ryan Reynolds dismissed This led to her re-releasing several of her albums, labeling them 'Taylor's Version.' Just recently, Swift ended up buying her catalog of songs back so that she solely owns the rights. When it came to 'this whole Taylor Swift incident' as it was called on the podcast, Braun replied with, 'What happened?' Braun went on to say, 'I thought I was going to work with all the artists on Big Machine. I thought it was gonna be an exciting thing. I knew that Taylor — she and I had only met three times, I think in my life, three or four times — one of the times, it was years earlier, it was really a great engagement.' Diddy's legal team again asks for a mistrial He also said, 'In between that time since I'd seen her last, I started managing Kanye West. I managed Justin Bieber. I knew she didn't get along with them. I had a feeling, this is where my arrogance came in. I had a feeling she probably didn't like me because I managed them. But I thought that once this announcement happened, she would talk to me, see who I am, and we would work together.' Braun also claimed that he asked for Swift's number after the Big Machine deal, but as he was calling artists with the label, Swift allegedly put out her open letter on Tumblr. 'I was just shocked. I don't need to go back into it, but what I can tell you is, everything in life is a gift. Having that experience allows me to have empathy for the people I worked with, who I would always say, 'Yeah, I understand.' But I never knew what it was like to be on the global stage like that.' Tony Awards laud android rom-com 'Maybe Happy Ending' and history-making 'Purpose' However, he did say that he doesn't have 'any hatred' over the situation. 'Everyone moves on. I choose to see it as a gift,' he said. Braun said on the podcast that he had a 'clear vision' of Bieber's success after watching his covers on YouTube. 'We were able to achieve some amazing things, and I'm very proud of what we achieved and always rooting for him,' Braun said of Bieber. Braun did say that his relationship with the singer is 'not the same that it was' when they were working together. Us Weekly reported in August of 2023 that Bieber officially ended his relationship with Braun. 'I think there comes a point where, I understand, he probably wants to go on and show that he can do it. We worked together for so long and we had such extreme success,' Braun said during the podcast episode. Braun said that not being 'happy' with who he was at the time did affect his marriage. During his public fallout with Swift, he was also in the middle of a divorce from Yael Cohen, with whom he has three kids. Us Weekly reported that the couple separated in 2021 and finalized the divorce in 2022. More alleged victims found, new charges filed against popular rock band drummer 'I think I was happy because everyone in the world told me I was doing great, and I thought that that was enough,' he said. 'I feel like I was asleep at the wheel. I feel like I didn't know myself at the time, but I had so much success at such a young age.' Braun said he and Cohen were 'made to be amazing coparents.' He said, 'Through the heartbreak of our relationship ending, we were brought together to make three incredible souls. Now, whoever gets me next is in for a treat.' Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
