Kinky Boots struts off with 6 Tonys

Cyndi Lauper performs at the 67th Annual Tony Awards
10 June 2013

The feel-good musical Kinky Boots, with songs by pop star and Broadway newcomer Cyndi Lauper, won six 2013 Tony Awards, including best musical, best score and best leading man.

Christopher Durang's comical Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike won the best play Tony. Matilda the Musical won four awards and three other shows - Pippin, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? and The Nance - shared three awards each.

Lauper, who wrote the hit Girls Just Want to Have Fun, was part of an impressive group of women who took top honours. Diane Paulus and Pam MacKinnon both won for directing - a rare time women have won directing Tonys for both a musical and a play in the same year - it also happened most recently at the 1998 Tonys.

Kinky Boots also won for choreography and two technical awards, and Billy Porter won for leading man in a musical. Porter beat Kinky Boots co-star Stark Sands and told him from the stage: "You are my rock, my sword, my shield. Your grace gives me presence. I share this award with you. I'm gonna keep it at my house! But I share it with you."

Paulus won her first Tony for directing the crackling, high-energy revival of the musical Pippin, which also earned the best revival honour and helped Patina Miller earn a best leading actress trophy.

MacKinnon won for directing the play Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, a year after earning her first nomination for helming Clybourne Park. Her revival of Edward Albee's story of marital strife won the best play revival and earned Tracy Letts his first acting Tony, an upset beating of Tom Hanks.

Andrea Martin, 66, who won as featured actress in a musical, plays Pippin's grandmother and sings the music hall favourite No Time at All, stuns audiences nightly by doing jaw-dropping stunts that would make someone a fraction of her age blanch.

Courtney B Vance won for best featured actor in a play for portraying a newspaper editor opposite Tom Hanks in Lucky Guy. Judith Light won her second featured actress in a play Tony in two years, cementing the former TV star as a Broadway star. Meanwhile, Gabriel Ebert of Matilda the Musical won as best featured actor in a musical. He thanked his four Matildas and his parents, stooping down to speak into the microphone.

Cicely Tyson, 88, won the best leading actress in a play honours for the revival of The Trip to Bountiful, the show's only award on the night. It was the actress' first time back on Broadway in three decades.

The awards cap a somewhat grim financial season on Broadway in which the total box office take was flat and the number of ticket buyers slipped 6%. Both numbers were blamed in part on Superstorm Sandy, but high ticket prices and the lack of long term audience growth has many worried.

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