‘Hamilton’ wins 11 Tony Awards, falls short of record
NEW YORK — “Hamilton,” the hip-hop stage biography of Alexander Hamilton, won the 2016 Tony Award for best new musical, capping an emotional night in which many in the Broadway community rallied to embrace the LGBT community after a shooting at a gay Florida nightclub.
Lin-Manuel Miranda’s hip-hop-flavored biography about the first U.S. Treasury secretary won 11 Tonys, just short of breaking the 12-Tony record held by “The Producers.”
“Hamilton” went into the night with 16 nominations and, in addition to taking the musical award, won best score, best book, direction, orchestration, choreography and best featured actor and actress statuettes for Bay Area natives Daveed Diggs of Oakland and Renée Elise Goldsberry of San Jose.
The show earlier won awards for costume and lighting but lost scenic design to “She Loves Me,” meaning “Hamilton” couldn’t break the 12-statuette record haul by “The Producers.”
[...] few shows get introduced by a sitting president, as Barack and Michelle Obama did for the performance by the show’s cast.
The awards show unspooled with a heavy heart a night after a gunman killed 50 people at a gay Florida nightclub, prompting a Broadway tribute to the victims at the top of the show and a smattering of references to tolerance throughout it.
Host James Corden, his back to the audience, spoke to viewers when he dedicated the night to celebrating the diversity of Broadway.
The show opened with the “Hamilton” cast members performing their opening number with the lyrics altered to have them all wondering why Corden — “chatting with Hollywood phonies” — had earned the honor of hosting the show.