Tony Awards laud android rom-com Maybe Happy Ending and history-making Purpose

Maybe Happy Ending, a rom-com musical about androids that crackles with humanity, had a definite happy ending at Sunday's Tony Awards.

It won best new musical on a night when Kara Young made history as the first Black person to win two Tonys consecutively, for Purpose, which also won best new play.

Starring Darren Criss and Helen J. Shen, Maybe Happy Ending charts the romantic relationship between two decommissioned robots, becoming a commentary on human themes and the passage of time. It won a leading six Tonys.

With Purpose, a drawing-room drama about an accomplished Black family exposing hypocrisy and pressures during a snowed-in gathering, Branden Jacobs-Jenkins caps a remarkable year.  

In addition to winning back-to-back Tonys — his Appropriate won best play revival in 2024 — earned the Pulitzer Prize for Purpose. (That win came the day of the Met Gala, where he served on the host committee.)

Jacobs-Jenkins becomes the first Black playwright to win for best new play since August Wilson took home the trophy in 1987 for Fences. He urged Tony viewers to support regional theatres; Purpose was nurtured in Chicago.

Young, the first Black female actor to be nominated for a Tony Award in four consecutive years, became the first Black person to win two Tonys consecutively with the featured actress in a play trophy for her work in Purpose.

Young thanked her parents, Jacobs-Jenkins, her cast and director Phylicia Rashad.

"Theatre is a sacred space that we have to honour and treasure, and it makes us united," she said.

Sunset Blvd., with Nicole Scherzinger starring as a fallen screen idol desperate to reclaim her fame, won best musical revival, handing composer Andrew Lloyd Webber his first competitive Tony since 1995 — when the original show won. The current version is a stripped-down, minimalist production.

Scherzinger also won for best lead actress in a musical, muscling aside a considerable challenge from Audra McDonald, who was gunning for her seventh statuette. It caps a remarkable career pivot for Scherzinger, once the lead singer of the pop group Pussycat Dolls and a TV talent show judge. 

"Don't give up," she said. "This is a testament that love always wins."

Criss, who has starred in everything from Glee to The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story, won his first Tony for Maybe Happy Ending, which he also co-produced. He said he shared it with Shen, who was not nominated.

Sarah Snook took home the trophy for leading actress in a play for her tireless work in The Picture of Dorian Gray, where she plays all 26 roles.