40 | JUNE 22 • 2023 

ARTS&LIFE
THEATER

B

roadway made a state-
ment about antisemi-
tism Sunday evening, 
June 11, as two high-profile 
shows on the subject this sea-
son — the play Leopoldstadt 
and the musical revival Parade 
— pulled in multiple major 
Tony awards.
Some of the shows’ honor-
ees, in turn, made statements 
of their own linking hatred 
of Jews with other forms of 
hatred, including homophobia 
and anti-transgender senti-
ment at a time when trans 
inclusion is under attack in 
many places.
Leopoldstadt, Tom Stoppard’s 
epic semi-autobiograph-
ical play about three generations of a 
Viennese Jewish family before and after 
the Holocaust, won four of the six Tonys 
for which it was nominated, including best 
play. (It was Stoppard’s fifth Tony, coming 
55 years after his first, for Rosencrantz and 
Guildenstern are Dead.
The Leopoldstadt actor Brandon 
Uranowitz, the only member of the play’s 
large cast to receive an acting nomina-
tion, won for featured actor in a play and 
thanked Stoppard for writing a show about 
antisemitism and “the false promise of 
assimilation.” He noted that members of 
his family were murdered by the Nazis in 
Poland.
Uranowitz, who is gay, ended with a plea 
to parents: “When your child tells you who 
they are, believe them.”
Parade, about the 1915 lynching of 
American Jew Leo Frank, won two prizes, 
including best revival of a musical. Alfred 
Uhry, who wrote the book to the original 
1998 production of Parade, wore a Star of 
David lapel pin when he came up to accept 
the award for best revival.
Michael Arden, the show’s director, noted 
in his speech that Leo Frank had “a life that 

was cut short at the hands of the belief that 
one group of people is more or less valuable 
than another,” which he noted is “at the 
core of antisemitism, of white supremacy, of 
homophobia, of transphobia, of intolerance 
of any kind.”
Arden warned the crowd to learn the les-
sons of the show “or else we are doomed to 
repeat the horrors of our history.” He con-
cluded his speech with an expletive, bleeped 
out by the telecast, as he voiced his support 
of trans and nonbinary youth.
While Parade took the top prize, as well 
as best director of a musical, its Jewish stars 
Ben Platt and Micaela Diamond both lost 
out in their categories — Platt to Some Like 
It Hot star J. Harrison Ghee, and Diamond 
to Kimberly Akimbo star Victoria Clark. But 
Platt and Diamond did share a moment 
onstage, performing the Parade number 
“This Is Not Over Yet” in character as an 
imprisoned Frank and his wife Lucille.
The non-Jewish actor Sean Hayes won 
best actor in a play for his role as Oscar 
Levant, the real-life Jewish concert pianist, 
actor and entertainer who had lifelong 
struggles with mental illness, in Good Night, 
Oscar.
“This has got to be the first time an Oscar 

won a Tony,” Hayes quipped, 
adding that Levant’s “wit and 
irascibility and virtuosity is not 
only inspirational but a true 
original.”
There were several other 
Jewish moments at the show. 
Jewish Broadway legends John 
Kander, 96, and Joel Grey, 91, 
received the evening’s lifetime 
achievement awards, with 
Grey’s actress daughter Jennifer 
Grey presenting him with his 
honor. Among the pair’s many 
achievements: Kander composed 
and Grey starred in Cabaret, 
a musical set in Weimar-era 
Germany, and Grey mounted 
the recent successful Yiddish-
language revival of Fiddler on the 
Roof. Kander is also the composer behind 
New York, New York, a new show whose 
musician characters include a Jewish refu-
gee from Nazi-occupied Poland.
Miriam Silverman won the featured 
actress in a play award for her role in The 
Sign in Sidney Brustein’s Window, a revival 
of a long-overlooked Lorraine Hansberry 
play about a Jewish bohemian couple in 
1960s Greenwich Village.
Lea Michele, despite not being eligi-
ble for a Tony for taking over for Beanie 
Feldstein in Funny Girl, performed her 
signature tune from the show about the 
Jewish comedian Fanny Brice. A Beautiful 
Noise, a biographical jukebox musical about 
chart-topping Jewish pop crooner Neil 
Diamond, also snuck in a performance of 
“Sweet Caroline” despite not being nomi-
nated for anything. The crowd gamely sang 
along.
And an unexpected Jewish shoutout came 
near the end of the ceremony, when the 
cast of the musical comedy Shucked, a show 
about corn, performed a song instruct-
ing viewers about the many places where 
the vegetable can be enjoyed. Among the 
options: “Bring it to a bris!” 

Antisemitism-themed Leopoldstadt and Parade are big Tony Awards winners.
Big Winners at the Tony’s

ANDREW LAPIN JTA.ORG

Tom Stoppard accepts the award for best new play for Leopoldstadt onstage 
during the 76th Annual Tony Awards at United Palace Theater in New York 
City, June 11, 2023.

THEO WARGO/GETTY IMAGES FOR TONY AWARDS PRODUCTIONS

