Review Roundup: The 76th Annual Tony Awards

The 76th Annual Tony Awards took place last night, June 11, at the United Palace Theater.

Check out our full list of winners here.

Hosted by Ariana DeBose, the 76th Annual Tony Awards featured performances from the casts of nominated best musicals and revivals, including Camelot, Into The Woods, & Juliet, Kimberly Akimbo, New York, New York, Parade, Shucked, Some Like It Hot and Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street.

In addition, the show also featured performances from Joaquina Kalukango, the winner of the 2022 Tony Award for Best Performance by a Leading Actress in a Musical, the cast of A Beautiful Noise, the cast of Funny Girl, and a special performance for the Tony Award for the 2023 Special Tony Awards for Lifetime Achievement in the Theatre recipients, Joel Grey and John Kander.

Find out what the critics thought of Broadway's big night below!

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Jesse Green, Maya Phillips, Elisabeth Vincentelli, Laura Collins-Hughes, Alexis Soloski and Sarah Bahr, The New York Times: No script, no nonsense. At this year’s ceremony, a camera merely scanned the collision backstage between those who had just finished belting their butts off (like the medieval residents of “Camelot”) and those about to go into battle (like the Elizabethans of “& Juliet”). You could see at a glance the love among performers in different shows, whom we often think of as opposing football teams. With hugs, high fives, hooting and sometimes mime — have to be careful with those vocal cords, after all — they demonstrated in visual shorthand that the “community” Broadway people are always talking about is real. 

Johnny Oleksinski, New York Post: The 2022-23 Broadway season was encumbered by tiny, niche, pretentious fare that nobody cares much about and that looked absolutely microscopic in the 3,300-seat theater. The nominees’ performances — the biggest showcase these musicals will ever get — were Ambientertainment.

Gordon Cox, Variety: When we heard the agreement between the WGA and the Tony producers meant that the ceremony would go on without material written specifically for the night, many observers thought maybe the awards could be done and dusted in a couple of hours, tops. But no, with all the live musical performances, video tributes and heartfelt speeches, the 2023 Tony ceremony easily filled its three hours on CBS, plus an hour-and-change on PlutoTV. It was all more entertaining and less awkward than it might have been — but we’ll all look forward to having the writers back on board next year. Sometimes it’s better to be on book.

Maureen Lee Lenker, Entertainment Weekly:  Ariana DeBose was on hand to host again, following up her emcee gig at last year's Tony Awards and this year's BAFTA ceremony. DeBose gave a hearty thanks to all who came together to find a compromise to let the show go on, while also warning the audience to "buckle up" due to being unscripted. Without a script, the Tony Awards, live from the United Palace in Washington Heights instead shone a spotlight on the best and brightest from Broadway's stages this year. There were still plenty of memorable moments (some great, some cringey).

Peter Marks, Washington Post: The entire ceremony — hosted for the first 90 streaming minutes by Julianne Hough and Skylar Astin — felt sleek and spontaneous, and proceeded at a gratifyingly swift pace. Despite (or because of?) its special challenges, it was one of the best Tony shows in memory. The evening included such notable presenters as Common, Uzo Aduba, Barry Manilow, Melissa Etheridge and Lupita Nyong’o, and even a notable burn by actress Denée Benton, who referred to Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida as that state’s “grand wizard.”

Greg Evans, Deadline: No scripted banter, acceptance speeches kept to a minimum, a charming, seemingly off-the-cuff hosting performance by Ariana DeBose – all made for a terrific evening that showcased Broadway in just the right light. Even the new venue – new for the Tonys, that is – turned in a star performance: the United Palace in New York City’s Washington Heights looked absolutely gorgeous.

Daniel Fienberg, The Hollywood Reporter: I eagerly await a whole bunch of Fox News commentators who didn’t watch the Tonys and haven’t seen an original play or musical in their lifetimes attempt to raise a stink about the Tonys going “woke” because, honestly, I need a little more comedy in my life. This is a big part of what the Tonys exist for. The world is full of shows where Jennifer Lawrence can be charming and funny and thank her agent, but there’s one show in which J. Harrison Ghee (Some Like It Hot) and Alex Newell (Shucked) can become the first openly nonbinary performers to receive awards and make passionate speeches directly to a subset of viewers who need to know that the states attempting to legislate their identities out of existence are not the only voices in society. 

Neal Justin, Star Tribune: Theater lovers may no longer be able to see that chandelier drop at the Majestic Theater in New York, but the Tonys ceremony on Sunday evening proved there was still plenty of reasons for viewers to make the trip East. Turns out the sales pitch needs less pre-written banter than we thought.

Andy Swift, TV Line:  In a night loaded with musical numbers, the most show-stopping moments from the 2023 Tony Awards didn’t involve any singing whatsoever. From Michael Arden’s defiant message to his homophobic high school bullies (“I’m a f–got with a Tony!”) to J. Harrison Ghee and Alex Newell’s historic wins as nonbinary performers, this year’s salute to Broadway was a parade of memorable soundbites — despite the absence of an actual script.

Jackson McHenry, Vulture: The Tony Awards, as you may have heard at least a dozen times tonight from various ad-libbing hosts and presenters, aired scriptlessly owing to the WGA strike. In true the-show-must-go-on fashion, the ceremony managed to make the most of the situation. The producers’ solution, all around, was to lean hard on the Tonys’ innate advantages: the musical numbers, the theater-kid enthusiasm of all involved, and precut clips from the nominated shows — an innovation CBS should really keep around. Theater people know how to carry on, and they all did. Amid lots of energy and sometimes little coherence, here were the highs and lows from the evening.

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