Broadway’s biggest night took place at Radio City Music Hall in NYC, NY last night as the 63rd Annual Tony Awards were handed out in a lavish and fun ceremony. Hosted by Neil Patrick Harris, this year’s Tony Awards injected mirth and merriment into the awards show that honors achievement in plays and musical theater on New York City’s Great White Way. Billy Elliot the Musical, which David and I were fortunate enough to see earlier this year, set a record by winning 10 Tony Awards last night, including Best Actor in a Musical (an award that was given to the 3 young actors who play Billy in the show … which is a first in Tony Awards history) and Best Musical. Here are a few pics from the red carpet arrivals:

Yes, folks … that is Bret Michaels of Poison in the last photo. The band was on hand to preform with the company of Rock of Ages in the opening number … which turned out to be a quite a performance, especially for Bret — but I’ll get to that in a sec. Here are a few photos of some of the Tony Award winners last night and some deets about the show itself:

Broadway productions with roots in the London theater dominated the 63rd annual Tony Awards on Sunday, with “Billy Elliot” winning best musical and nine other awards and “God of Carnage” picking up honors for best play, best director and best actress. While several categories were unusually competitive this year because of the large number of strong Broadway productions, there were also no major upsets. The three teenage boys who rotate in the title role of “Billy Elliot” — David Alvarez, Trent Kowalik and Kiril Kulish — jointly won the award for best actor in a musical, as expected, and they also injected considerable charm into the CBS telecast. Standing onstage together, they covered their eyes with their hands at different points and looked away from the camera bashfully while muttering sentiments like “Oh my God” and “wow” and “unbelievable.” Then they took a long pause, as if trying to decide who should speak first — joint Tony Awards are very rare — and then went on to thank their parents and siblings and school and dance teachers. “And we want to say to all the kids out there who might want to dance, never give up,” Mr. Kulish added. “Billy Elliot” proved to be the commercial and critical musical hit of the 2008-9 Broadway season, routinely grossing more than $1 million a week in spite of the recession. Elton John, who composed the show’s score, made a point of thanking audience members for that success as he accepted the award for best musical. “We came here at a hard time economically, you opened your wallets and you opened your hearts, and we love you for it,” he said. This year’s awards were spread around evenly for the most part, with 14 shows receiving at least one Tony. With “Billy Elliot” far ahead, the musical “Next to Normal” and “God of Carnage” were next up with three Tonys each, including best actress honors for Alice Ripley for “Normal” and Marcia Gay Harden for “Carnage.” The French playwright Yasmina Reza accepted the best play award for “Carnage,” which also took honors for the British director Matthew Warchus. “I’m very happy to be here again — maybe you missed my accent; you wanted to hear it again?” said Ms. Reza, who previously won for her play “Art.” The award for best revival of a play went to another British import, “The Norman Conquests.” If accents were indeed in large supply through the night, so were celebrity presenters and recipients, with Broadway having one of its busiest years for actors from film and television. The Oscar-winning actor Geoffrey Rush (an Australian) was honored as best actor in a play as the monarch in “Exit the King” by Eugène Ionesco, whose works came to define the Theater of the Absurd yet are rarely revived on Broadway. “I want to thank Manhattan theater audiences for proving that French existential absurdist tragi-comedy rocks,” Mr. Rush said. Politics strayed onto the Tony landscape at only a couple of points, most notably when Oskar Eustis, artistic director of the Public Theater, accepted the award for best musical revival for “Hair.” “Peace now, freedom now, equality now,” Mr. Eustis said, gesturing to his ring finger as he uttered those last two words, a reference to gay marriage rights. “And justice forever.” Angela Lansbury won her fifth Tony Award, for best featured actress in a play, for her turn as the medium in “Blithe Spirit,” 43 years after winning her first award, for best actress in the musical “Mame.” “Who knew, who knew, that at this time in my life that I should be presented with this lovely, lovely award,” said Ms. Lansbury, who is 83. Liza Minnelli received the Tony for special theatrical event for her one-woman show “Liza’s at the Palace.” For best featured performances in a musical, Gregory Jbara (“Billy Elliot”) and Karen Olivo (“West Side Story”) were honored. The best featured actor award went to another theater veteran, Roger Robinson, for his role in “Joe Turner’s Come and Gone.” Other awards went to Stephen Daldry for his direction of “Billy Elliot,” “Mary Stuart” for costume design and “Equus” for sound design. All three shows had runs in London before the current Broadway productions were mounted.

I am so happy that Billy Elliot won so many awards. It is truly a superb show, one that David and I thoroughly enjoyed when we saw in January. We saw Trent Kowalik play Billy at our show and really loved his performance … the award to the 3 Billys is much deserved, I think. Congrats!! I’m not sure how many of you watched the Tony Awards last night but it was a very entertaining show. The opening number included short performances from 10 different musicals and offered one of the most talked about/funniest moments of the show. After the jump, check out video from that opening number and see how Poison‘s Bret Michaels almost lost his head during the opening performance …

Poison performed Nothing But a Good Time with the Rock of Ages company and as the set backdrop descended, Bret was bizzy giving air kisses to the audience … as a result, he smashed his face into the backdrop and got knocked onto his ass:

Click HERE to see a closeup of this video, it shows more clearly Bret‘s run-in with the backdrop. I understand he wasn’t badly injured but he was injured enough to miss out on the Rock of Ages afterparty. The opening number was pretty fun, click HERE to watch the whole performance. My other fave performance came not from any of the shows (altho, they were very entertaining) but came instead from our host Neil Patrick Harris. His closing number about the show itself was ingenious … and damn funny. Check it out:


Love it! Um, hello … someone get this man his own show on Broadway! Once again, congrats to all the winners at last night’s Tony Awards. Click HERE to see a full list of winners from the 63rd Annual Tony Awards. The theater is so amazingly fun, I urge those of you who are able to attend shows to attend shows as much as possible. I now have a burning desire to see the shows Next to Normal, Joe Turner’s Come and Gone, God of Carnage and Hair. See shows, y’all … you won’t regret it.

[Photo credit: Wireimage; Source]