The 79th Tony Awards unfolded at Radio City Music Hall with Pink as host, opening on a Broadway-sized reinvention of her hit “Lady Marmalade” that packed the stage with dozens of performers — among them former host Neil Patrick Harris and Megan Thee Stallion — under a banner of unity. “I’m here to celebrate the hardest working people in show business,” Pink said as the number landed, setting the tone for an evening thick with records, snubs and surprises.
By the end of the night, most of the history belonged to a single show, and, improbably, to the technology company behind it.
Cinco Paul wrote the book, the music and the lyrics for “Schmigadoon!” by himself, and on Sunday, he carried home every writing-and-show trophy a sole author can claim. “Schmigadoon!” — adapted from the Apple TV musical-comedy series that ran two seasons — won book of a musical, original score and in the night’s final envelope, best musical, finishing with four awards.
That makes Paul only the fourth person in Broadway history to win book and score in the same year his show took the Tonys‘ top prize, a clean solo-author sweep managed before him by only by Rupert Holmes with “The Mystery of Edwin Drood” in 1986, Jonathan Larson with “Rent” in 1996 and Lin-Manuel Miranda with “Hamilton” in 2016.
