Fun Home, the musical adaptation of Alison Bechdel's graphic-novel memoir, won the night at Sunday’s Tony Awards, a triumph that capped a groundbreaking ceremony where women collected trophies in every creative field. Fun Home's composer Jeanine Tesori and lyricist/book writer Lisa Kron made history as the first female writing team to win in their categories, and despite rave reviews, Fun Home's wins were a genuine surprise, upending industry predictions that had tapped a stage version of the 1951 film An American in Paris as the favorite because of its potential as a national touring production.
Along with Fun Home’s success, the ceremony, broadcast on CBS live from Radio City Music Hall, saw women accept trophies for Direction of a Play (Marianne Elliott for The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time), Scenic Design of a Play (Bunny Christie for the same production, along with Finn Ross), Costume Design of a Musical (Catherine Zuber for the revival of The King and I) and more.
It felt like an inadvertent rebuke to the homogenous slate of nominees offered by the Academy Awards this year, and an advertisement for the creative diversity that seems to be on an upswing this year on Broadway.
Only nine women have won a Tony for directing—but that’s eight more than have won an Oscar in the same category, and 33 percent of this year’s Tony-eligible shows were directed by women this year, compared to 13 percent the year before.
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