Robot love story Maybe Happy Ending and Black family drama Purpose had great nights at the 78th annual Tony Awards, which took place at Radio City Music Hall in New York City on Sunday, respectively winning Best Musical and Best Play.

Speaking of the decision to bring the show from its native South Korea to New York City, Maybe Happy Ending producer Hunter Arnold said in the Tonys press room post-win, “The moment I read it, heard it, [director] Michael [Arden] told me about it — it was just this gorgeous jewel box of a heartwarming show. So universal, it’s so hopeful and it’s ironically so incredibly human. So it was a very easy decision to be like, let’s put this thing in Michael’s hands and make it and bring it to life.”

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In the musical acting categories, Darren Criss nabbed the Tony for Best Performance by a Leading Actor for Maybe Happy Ending while Nicole Scherzinger earned Best Performance by a Leading Actress for Sunset Boulevard, which also won best revival of a musical.

SEE: 2025 Tony Awards highlights: The best, the worst, and the ‘Hamilton’ mixtape

Criss said in his acceptance speech that he shares his award with his costar Helen J. Shen (who wasn’t nominated), whom he believes had “a Broadway debut for the books” and named his wife “the real hero” for supporting their family through his work. Scherzinger, meanwhile, grew emotion, stating, “Growing up, I always felt like I didn’t belong. And you all have made me feel like I belong at last.”

Andrew Lloyd Weber , who ended a personal 30-year Tony drought by winning Best Musical Revival for Sunset Boulevard, spoke in the press room about a range of topics, including the aesthetic of this iteration of the show starring Scherzinger: “What I think is fantastic about this production of Sunset Boulevard is, although it may be radically different in the sense that it doesn’t have huge great sets or anything like that, it doesn’t have a great big house for Norma Desmond — what it has is an incredible visual style. And I always feel that with a musical, that’s one of the first things you need to talk about with the director.”

Theo Wargo/Getty Images for Tony Awards Productions

Writer Branden Jacobs Jenkins showed appreciation for his Purpose collaborators after his win, saying, “This play only happened because I had the opportunity to work with one of the best acting ensembles in the world and work with the Phylicia Rashad and really just be in a room where we play make-believe all day.”

On the topic of the cast, Featured Actress in a Play winner Kara Young became the first Black person to win back-to-back performance Tonys, following last year’s win for Purlie Victorious. She spoke following her historic win of her commonalities with her character, Aziza, a queer Harlem woman, and also emphasized the importance of “ancestral storytelling.” Her castmate Harry Lennix, who was nominated for his role as the central family’s patriarch, spoke on the red carpet about the profundity at the heart of Purpose.

SEE: ‘Every beat is meticulously crafted’: An oral history of the Pulitzer Prize- and Tony-winning play ‘Purpose’

“My biggest takeaway, really, is these questions that the play asks: ‘Why am I here? What is the purpose of my life? How can I know that with any kind of confidence and then pursue that?’” said Lennix. “I don’t think there’s a more important question, and I am glad to be in a play that asks that question and in many ways tries to answer it.”

Best Actor in a Play was awarded to Cole Escola, who wrote the play Oh Mary! in which Mary Todd Lincoln is reimagined as a cabaret singer; the recognition makes them the first openly nonbinary actor to win the award. Meanwhile, Sarah Snook’s Broadway debut in Kip Williams’ modern adaptation of The Picture of Dorian Gray, in which she plays all 26 characters, earned her the trophy for Lead Actress in a Play.

In addition to the American Theater Wing bestowing awards, the original cast of Hamilton including Lin-Manuel Miranda brought us back to the country’s revolutionary era to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the beloved hip-hop musical, coming together for a special mashup including hits like “Non-Stop” and “My Shot.”

CBS/Tony Awards

Host Cynthia Erivo pulled off a sweeping opening performance, and subsequent musical numbers from a myriad of this season’s productions also provided entertainment throughout the night. Scherzinger showed off her vocal range with her rendition of the emotional ballad As If We Never Said Goodbye from Sunset Boulevard; Criss and Shen brought their firefly-lit robot romance from Maybe Happy Ending to the stage with a duet, while Jonathan Groff of Just in Time channeled the midcentury music of Bobby Darin. The cast of Buena Vista Social Club brought the sounds of Cuba to Radio City, and Audra McDonald passionately reminded audiences that “everything’s coming up roses.”

SEE: 2025 Tony Awards: ‘Maybe Happy Ending’ dominates with 6 wins, Nicole Scherzinger shocks with Best Actress win over Audra McDonald

Elsewhere in the night, Broadway veteran and four-time Tony winner Harvey Fierstein was honored with the Lifetime Achievement Award.

Meanwhile, others were celebrating nominations after their shows’ runs had come to a close, like James Monroe Ingehart, who was nominated for Best Actor in a Musical for his portrayal of Louis Armstrong in A Wonderful World.

Asked what he wishes more people knew about Armstrong, Iglehart replied, “I wish they knew how authentically Black he truly was. I think people see, Hello, Dolly, and think that that’s the guy. No, he was a real jazz musician. He was a real American, Black man who was a musician and who was the best at his craft. And I wish more people knew that because of him, the way the horn is played has changed, the way rhythms and things changed. He brought so many different things into music that people don’t even give him credit for.”

A slew of talented artisans were also recognized for their behind-the-curtain contributions.

Marg Harwell was nominated for Best Scenic Design of a Play (alongside David Bergman) and Best Costume Design of Play, the latter of which she won, for The Picture of Dorian Gray.

On the red carpet, she described a set piece that she’s particularly proud of: “It’s an old attic, like a childhood attic, and in the book, it says that he played there when he was a child. There’s a very haunted, terrifying rocking horse and a baby piano, but also there’s a motif of flowers that runs through the show. And there’s flowers and weeds growing out of the floor of the attic. It’s when the piece kind of starts to become slightly more psychological, and it’s some I think it’s a beautiful kind of contained diorama piece that feels like she’s a doll in a box.”

Also in the artisan world, Paul Tazewell won Best Costume Design for a Musical in recognition of his work on Death Becomes Her, which follows his Oscar win for Wicked in March.

Asked about the importance of diversity and inclusion amid the current administration’s attack on DEI, Tazewell said, “It is near and dear to my heart to make sure that we’re prioritizing creating space for other points of view, people that look different, people that live different lives — because that makes the stories that we tell more interesting, more heartfelt, more universal. And that’s what theater making is about, that’s what filmmaking is about. And I think it’s very, very important that space is given to young voices, to people of color, to women, to other genders, other sexuality. It’s just very, very important because it makes our world, our stories, more reflective of who we are and how to be human.”

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