No script at Tony Awards, but plenty of song, dance, high spirits

No script? No problem! There was plenty of uncertainty in the run-up to this year’s Tony Awards, which at one point seemed unlikely to happen at all due to the ongoing Hollywood writer’s strike.
But the ceremony went off without a hitch on Sunday night. The event was scriptless, to honor a compromise with striking writers, but chock full of high-spirited Broadway performances drawing raucous cheers from an audience clearly thrilled to be there at all.
It was a night of triumph for the small-scale but huge-hearted musical “Kimberly Akimbo,” about a teenager with a rare aging disease, but also a night notable for inclusion:
Two non-binary performers made history by winning their acting categories. The ceremony also touched on the specter of anti-Semitism in very different places: World War II Europe, with best play winner “Leopoldstadt,” and early 20th-century America, with “Parade,” winner for best musical revival.
In the end, the lack of scripted banter didn’t much dampen the proceedings, and little wonder: Broadway folks are trained in improv. And of course there was more room for singing and dancing – including from current shows not in competition – and nobody was complaining about that.