After a tragedy, my self-care looks a lot like looking the other way. After the day I had on Sunday, it looked like a few hours of work, and then live tweeting the Tony Awards using #powerbottomstweetthetonys. It was three and a half hours of pregnant ladies tap dancing, casts doing full musical numbers in their evening wear, a host that changed suits at least six times, and truly earnest and emotional speeches. This year’s award show was deeply healing for me. I needed the Tony Awards.
i love love love the theatre and i loved the tony awards this year. #powerbottomstweetthetonys
— Alaina Monts (@alainamonts) June 13, 2016
The big highlight of this year’s awards ceremony was, of course, Hamilton. The musical, if you haven’t heard of it, is about Alexander Hamilton, a founding father, and can be summed up in the first sentence of the show. “How does a bastard, orphan, son of a whore and a Scotsman, dropped in the middle of a forgotten spot in the Caribbean, by providence, impoverished, in squalor, grow up to be a hero and a scholar?” The creator of Hamilton, Lin-Manuel Miranda chose to cast the parts of American revolutionaries and founding fathers as people of color. The only white people in the show are a few in the chorus, and the British—the bad guys.
What Miranda does that is so powerful in Hamilton isn’t that he changes what the story was—it’s fairly accurate, and based off a biography by Ron Chernow— it’s that he changes how the story is told. The thing about theatre is that in its most pure, honest, utopian state, theatre really is the great equalizer. It’s supposed to be the place where the only thing that matters is your dedication to the craft and your talent. But the American theatre is a spinoff of America itself, and it is not a place of endless possibilities for most people. Hamilton brings us just a little closer. I think as queer folks, Hamilton has been so important because it reminds us that our stories are everywhere, and we can tell them however we want.
@Lin_Manuel really is the great equalizer of the american theatre he makes want to CRY. all this for the people!! #powerbottomstweetthetonys
— Alaina Monts (@alainamonts) June 13, 2016
By placing actors of color in all the most important roles in the musical, Miranda shows us that the story of America doesn’t only belong to white men. And I saw that so much watching the Tony Awards this year. I saw it and felt it in more ways than I have in a while, and it made me hopeful. Shuffle Along, another nominated show, had an almost all Black cast. The revival of Spring Awakening starred deaf actors and included an actor in a wheelchair. Marlee Matlin introduced the cast’s performance using ASL, and her introduction was translated for hearing audiences. So often, it’s done the other way around. Cynthia Erivo won the Tony Award for Best Leading Actress in a Musical for her portrayal of Celie in the revival of The Color Purple. Every single category for performance in a musical went to a Black person. So many of the people and shows honored tonight were not voices that we hear from. It felt good to be heard.
it felt like we’ve been heard, you know?? and like we aren’t always heard. #powerbottomstweetthetonys
— Alaina Monts (@alainamonts) June 13, 2016
and it feels like we’re being heard. like my voice is important in the theatre again i love it #powerbottomstweetthetonys
— Alaina Monts (@alainamonts) June 13, 2016
This year’s awards felt so good to watch as a Black person, a queer person, and a theatre artist. It felt like the theatre was finally listening to the voices that were being ignored. I think the theatre is full of possibilities, it’s full of room for any and everyone’s stories to be told. This year’s Tony Awards reminded me that there was room for my stories to be told and that they would be celebrated. Last year, when Fun Home was winning everything, I think we got a peek into what our theatrical future could be.
like it felt really good to be black and watch the tony awards this year! it felt good to be queer. young. #powerbottomstweetthetonys
— Alaina Monts (@alainamonts) June 13, 2016
Now, more than ever, in the climate we’re in, our stories need to be told. And our stories include loving, joy, revolution, dancing, crying, raging, surviving, and so, so much more. We have so much to tell, and it’s so important that we do. Miranda wrote a sonnet as his acceptance speech for Best Score. He summed up why the Tony Awards felt so important this year, and what to do with these voices and these stories that need to be heard.
…We chase the melodies that seem to find us
Until they’re finished songs and start to play
When senseless acts of tragedy remind us
That nothing here is promised, not one day.This show is proof that history remembers
We lived through times when hate and fear seemed stronger;We rise and fall and light from dying embers, remembrances that hope and love last longerAnd love is love is love is love is love is love is love is love cannot be killed or swept aside.I sing Vanessa’s symphony, Eliza tells her storyNow fill the world with music, love and pride.
