Actors Harvey Fierstein (left), Vanessa Redgrave (second left), Marissa Jaret Winokur (second right) and Brian Dennehy pose with their Tony Awards at the 57th annual Tony Awards at Radio City Music Hall in New York on Sunday. - Reuters NEW YORK (AP):
HAIRSPRAY, THE Broadway season's biggest musical hit, dominated the Tony Awards, collecting eight prizes, including best musical.
Take Me Out, Richard Greenberg's drama about a gay baseball player who comes out of the closet, was chosen as best play at Sunday night's awards ceremony.
A critically praised production of Eugene O'Neill's brooding masterpiece Long Day's Journey Into Night and an imaginative reworking of Nine, starring Spanish heart-throb Antonio Banderas, took home the revival awards for play and musical.
The Hairspray triumph was a family affair for three of its performers, who play mother, daughter and father in the musical, which is based on John Waters' campy film set in early 1960s Baltimore.
Fierstein won as best actor in a musical for his portrayal of hefty matriarch Edna Turnblad; Dick Latessa took the featured actor-musical award for playing Edna's diminutive husband, Wilbur, and Winokur was chosen best actress-musical for her performance as their daughter, Tracy, a perky, teenager determined to get on a television dance show.
Winokur gushed as she picked up the actress-musical prize.
"If a 4-foot-11-inch (1.5-metre), chubby, New York girl can be a leading lady in a Broadway show and win a Tony," she said to raucous cheers, "then anything can happen!"
