Last night's 69th Annual Tony Awards saw Fun Home, a musical based on lesbian cartoonist Alison Bechdel's autobiographic novel and the first Broadway musical to feature a lesbian protagonist, take home five awards including the coveted Best Musical. Fun Home writers Lisa Kron and Jeanine Tesori made history as the first all-female writing team to win a Tony in Best Original Score Written for the Theatre, and Kron also picked up the Tony in Best Book of a Musical. Michael Cerveris, who plays Alison's closeted father, took home the Tony in Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role in a Musical, and Fun Home director Sam Gold won the Best Direction of a Musical award. All together, Fun Home won the most Tonys of any musical that night.
Fun Home, which opened at Broadway's Circle in the Square Theatre on April 19, follows Bechdel's coming of age in three periods of her life, and her particularly complicated relationship with her closeted father. Best Featured Actress nominee Sydney Lucas (Young Alison) stole the show with a performance of "Ring of Keys" about the first time she saw a butch woman and identifying with that, also featuring Best Actress nominee Beth Malone (Alison) and Cerveris.
During his acceptance speech, Cerveris also made a point to encourage the Supreme Court to pass marriage equality in their upcoming decision, saying, "If Corey Mitchell [Tony winner for Excellence in Theatre Education] can teach his students to be their pure, wonderful selves, I hope that all of us can do that for everybody in our lives and across the country. And I hope the Supreme Court can recognize that too."
Tommy Tune, an out actor, dancer, singer, director, producer and choreographer who has won nine Tony Awards, was honored with a Special Tony Award for Lifetime Achievement in the Theatre. Tune made his Broadway debut as a performer in the musical Baker Street in 1965 and made his directorial and choreography debut in the Broadway debut of The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas in 1978. He spoke about being out in the theatre world in his 1997 memoir Footnotes. Out actor, writer, director John Cameron Mitchell (Hedwig and the Angry Inch) also received a Special Tony Award.