Several Tony Awards presenters and recipients took their opportunity to give some subtle and not-so-subtle jabs at President Trump, the White House and politics at the Tonys Sunday night.
Cynthia Nixon, who won best actress in a play for her part in “Lillian Hellman’s The Little Foxes,” indirectly spoke about Trump in her acceptance speech.
“It is a privilege to appear in Lillian Hellman’s eerily prescient play at this specific moment in history,” Nixon said. “Eighty years ago [Hellman] wrote, ‘There are people who eat the Earth and eat all the people on it, and other people who just stand around and watch them do it.’ My love, my gratitude and my undying respect go out to all the people in 2017 who are refusing to just stand and watch them do it.”
Nixon recently played Nancy Reagan in an adaptation of Bill O’Reilly’s book, “Killing Reagan.”
Kevin Kline also made a political remark while accepting his award for best actor in a play for his role in “Present Laughter.” He took the opportunity to “thank a couple of organizations without whom probably half of the people in this room would not be here,” the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities. Trump’s first federal budget proposal eliminates funding for both.
And presenter Stephen Colbert couldn’t let the moment pass.
Handing out the award for best revival of a musical, Colbert said, “It’s been a great year for revivals in general, especially that one they revived in Washington, D.C.”
He said one particular revival “started off-Broadway in the 1980s. Way off-Broadway, on Fifth Avenue” and that “this D.C. production is supposed to have a four-year run but reviews have not been kind. Could close early, we don’t know. Best of luck to everyone involved.”
And describing each of the musical nominees, Colbert also referred to “Miss Saigon” as “the only pageant whose locker room our president hasn’t walked in on.”
