Dear Evan Hansen won big at the 2017 Tonys with six awards, including Best Musical, Best Actor for Ben Platt, Best Featured Actress for Rachel Bay Jones, and Best Score for Benj Pasek and Justin Paul.
In terms of total awards, Hello, Dolly! came in second with four awards, including Best Actress for Bette Midler. On the play side, the awards were fairly evenly split: Oslo won Best Play and Best Featured Actor for Michael Aronov, but Indecent and The Little Foxes also picked up two awards each.
Unlike last year’s ceremony — where the unprecedented phenomenon that was Hamilton overshadowed the competition — the winners for this year's Tonys were far more difficult to guess. Yes, there were some sure things: Platt and Midler were predicted months ago. But categories without clear frontrunners allowed for some well-earned suspense and made wins for Aronov and Indecent play director Rebecca Taichman all the more exciting.
Hamilton may have made the 2016 Tonys more predictable, but it also helped imbue the ceremony with a more racially diverse set of winners. All four musical acting awards last year — three from Hamilton and one from The Color Purple — went to black actors. But as Hamilton creator Lin-Manuel Miranda said, “I think our incredibly, amazingly diverse Tonys season that just ended was a fluke.”
And indeed, this year’s crop of acting winners was decidedly whiter, although August Wilson’s Jitney picked up a Tony for Best Revival of a Play.
You can see the full list of Tony Award winners here.