Here is (Almost) Everyone Gay Who Won a Tony Award This Year
Photo by ANGELA WEISS/AFP via Getty Images
Bisexual icon Angelina Jolie was at the Tony’s last night, daughter Vivienne in tow rocking a killer vest and bow tie combo. Jolie won a Tony as a producer of The Outsiders when it won Best Musical, and she credits Vivienne for encouraging her to get involved with the show after seeing it in an early workshop.
And of course, Angelina Jolie‘s presence was far from the gayest thing at the Tony’s last night — amongst many other items we’ll get into shortly, it was hosted by bisexual theatrical and cinematic icon Ariana DeBose for the third year in a row. (Watch her epic opening number here!)
(Photo by Theo Wargo/Getty Images for Tony Awards Productions)
Saying that the Tony Awards were gay feels redundant. Not only because it’s one of the most joyful award shows, but because historically it’s been one of the gayest mediums, at least in the sense that theater kids are statistically likely to be LGBTQ+, according to my personal gay observations and not actually science at all. And, while a lot of the queer content within plays and musicals themselves have been about men, queer women have been appearing on stage and behind the scenes for decades, from Charlotte and Cordelia in Falsettos to Maureen and Joanne in RENT to Alison Bechdel in Fun Home to Emma and Alyssa in The Prom and so many more over the years.
To kick off year’s gay on stage highlights, we have the musical Lempicka, with actors Eden Espinosa and Amber Iman nominated for their Leading and Featured roles, respectively. Lempicka was also nominated for Best Scenic Design of a Musical.
The winner of the Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role in a Musical category is queer actor Maleah Joi Moon (who uses she/they pronouns) for their role in Hell’s Kitchen, an Alicia Keys semi-autobiographical musical.
NEW YORK, NEW YORK – JUNE 16: Maleah Joi Moon accepts the Best Leading Actress in a Musical award for “Hell’s Kitchen” onstage during The 77th Annual Tony Awards at David H. Koch Theater at Lincoln Center. (Photo by Theo Wargo/Getty Images for Tony Awards Productions)
Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role in a Play was won by lesbian icon Sarah Paulson for her role in “Appropriate.
Within the Best Musical nominated shows Water for Elephants we have queer star of The Prom, Isabelle McCalla, and in the musical Suffs we have queer actress Jenn Colella, who just had a daughter with her partner Mo Mullen.
Also, Future Elphaba queer actor Cynthia Erivo presented with Original Elphaba Idina Menzel, who went “off script” to say she was excited for the movie just in case anyone thought there was a rivalry there. They shared a moment of “Green Girl Power” and it was very sweet.
In more gay-adjacent news, Jaja’s African Hair Braiding was also nominated for Best Play, and featured in the cast is Brittany Adebumola, who I don’t THINK is queer (I couldn’t find any proof either way on her instagram) but she did play queer in The Other Black Girl.
Now, Broadway casts are big, and Wikipedia doesn’t seem as up to date with the personal lives of stage actors with the same fervor it does screen actors, so I am 300% sure that there are LGBTQ+ women and non-binary people involved in the casts and crews of these Tony nominated musicals and plays. And to you I say: hello, I love you, keep kicking ass and taking names. And if you know someone’s name I missed, PLEASE drop it in the comments. Broadway has a reputation of being the sport of gay men, and while there are a lot of wonderful gay men involved in the aforementioned musicals and plays (genuinely so happy for Jonathan Groff), but I thought the women and non-binary people deserved a little love, too.
Act II of Today’s Gay Pop Culture News
+ Devery Jacobs talks Backspot and decolonizing queer storytelling, “I don’t want to be told what kinds of stories I can tell or what kinds of stories I can be a part of.”
+ Station 19‘s Danielle Savre is going to join Shanola Hampton in Found season two, which is a great show (that could use some queering up if she wants to continue the trend)
+ Sara Rameriz is officially getting divorced, the line starts to the right
+ For a dose of Pride cutenesss, check out this doggy drag show
+ It’s not your imagination, LGBTQ+ representation in TV has gone down
+ Billie Eilish is the third artist ever to have 100 million monthly Spotify listeners (with a much smaller discography, and while being over a decade younger than the previous two artists, The Weeknd and Taylor Swift)
+ Julianna Margulies won’t be returning to The Morning Show; I stopped watching after Season 2 but from what I hear, this will be no great loss
+ The Fabulous Four trailer shows iconic actresses Susan Sarandon, Sheryl Lee Ralph, Megan Mullally, and Bette Midler joining forces in in a wedding comedy
+ People seem to be into Kristen Stewart’s buddy road trip comedy, Sacramento
+ Chappell Roan met a mini-fan at a Pride festival; the kids are alright
+ Check out the lineup for the upcoming LGBTQ+ Film Fest, Frameline, which includes names like Ani DiFranco and Lena Waithe
I’ve just seen the announcement that High School was cancelled by Freevee. I’d kind of assumed as much since it’s been over two years since the first season was filmed, but I was still gutted by the confirmation when I googled to see if there were any updates.
Sorry not really relevant to this post, I just wanted to come here and commiserate with other people who might have seen it. I don’t know if AS covered the news (it’s from a little while ago), if so I missed it.
I know, it’s such a bummer!!!
Ariana DeBose is NOT bisexual. .she is queer. She has called herself : queer, gay, and sometime a lesbian, but never bisexual . She’s a queer woman that prefers women. She’s in a relationship with a woman right now .
Also, Jen Colella is married. Mo is her wife, not just her partner.