NEW YORK -Welcome to the 2023 Tony Awards, a show with an extra jolt of electricity this time due to the Hollywood writers' strike.
A total of 26 Tony Awards will be handed out Sunday for a season that had 40 new productions -- 15 musicals, 24 plays and one special engagement during the first post-pandemic full season. "Just like the the country and the world is resetting, I think our storytelling and how we get our stories out there is resetting as well," said Kenny Leon, who directed "Topdog/ Underdog" and "Ohio State Murders" this season. "The positive I take away is the variety of the material, from a Black-led 'Death of a Salesman' to new plays like 'KPOP' and 'Ain't No Mo" and 'Leopoldstadt' and 'Prima Facie.
The best new play category is a competition among Tom Stoppard's "Leopoldstadt," which explores Jewish identity with an intergenerational story, and "Fat Ham," James Ijames' Pulitzer Prize-winning adaptation of Shakespeare's "Hamlet" set at a Black family's barbecue in the modern South.