6 takeaways from the 2022 Tony Awards

Host Ariana DeBose performs at the 75th annual Tony Awards on Sunday, June 12, 2022, at Radio City Music Hall in New York. (Photo by Charles Sykes/Invision/AP)

The 75th Annual Tony Awards celebrated Broadway’s first full season after the pandemic shutdown. Many of the shows up for awards were supposed to open in 2020 — until theaters unexpectedly closed for a year and a half.

One of the producers for “The Lehman Trilogy,” in his speech accepting the award for Best Play, said, with resignation, that “between the fourth and fifth preview were 577 days.”

Yet this Tony Awards didn’t harp on how hard COVID was for the industry. It didn’t beg tourists to return. Instead, the show was surprisingly warm and welcoming — thanks in large part to its host, Ariana DeBose.