Commentary: An unscripted Tony Awards 2023 found meaning and eloquence on a historic night
The ceremony for the Tony Awards was unscripted this year because of the Writers Guild of America strike, but playwrights, librettists and lyricists were omnipresent throughout an evening that recognized the centrality of the written word.
Speaker after speaker at the United Palace in Manhattan’s Washington Heights neighborhood, where the event was held on Sunday, paid tribute to those who spend their time arranging words on the page.
“Writers are not just the cornerstone of theatrical production — the sharp end of the inverted pyramid,” as Tom Stoppard more eloquently put it when he accepted the best play award for “Leopoldstadt.” They are the articulators of our values and the search lights of our consciousness.
The WGA had asked its members not to attend, but it was moving to see so many artists advance
