Fil-Ams Nicole Scherzinger, Darren Criss win first Tonys

Filipino-American artists Nicole Scherzinger and Darren Criss are finally Tony Award winners.

sAt the awards night held 8 June at the Radio City Music Hall, New York, Scherzinger earned the Best Performance by an Actress in her Broadway debut as Nora Desmond in Jamie Lloyd’s revival of Sunset Boulevard.

“Growing up, I always felt like I didn’t belong. But you all have made me feel like I belong, and I have come home, at last,” Scherzinger said.

Scherzinger has beaten six-time Tony winner Audra McDonald’s portrayal of Rose in Gypsy. Other nominees in the category are Jennifer Simard and Megan Hilty from Death Becomes Her and Jasmine Amy Rodgers from Boop! The Musical.

In 2024, Scherzinger won the Olivier Award for Best Actress in a Musical for her performance across the pond, a production also by Jamie Lloyd.

“Jamie Lloyd you saw in me what know one else did. You gave us all new ways to dream and you’ve changed my life together,” Scherzinger added.

Sunset Boulevard, based on the 1950s film of the same name, follows the life of fading silent screen star Nora Desmond. As she lives in her decaying Sunset Boulevard mansion, she meets a young screenwriter who she sees as an opportunity to return to the big screen.

Criss, meanwhile, took home the Best Performance by a Leading Actor as Oliver in Maybe Happy Ending. This also marks his first Tony award.

“The real hero about this, for this remarkable journey, is my wife, Mia, who took a massive swing on allowing me to do this and to allow this crazy upheaval in our life to make this logistically possible, and for bearing the brunt of raising two tiny friends under three so that I could raise a singing robot at the Belasco Theatre eight times a week,” Criss said.

He added, “Mia, you’re the very pedestal that upholds the shiny, spinny bit in our lives, and your love and your support for me and our beautiful children, combined with the miracle of working on something as magical as Maybe Happy Ending has been and will always be, award enough.”

Here are the other winners:

* Best Play: Purpose (Branden Jacobs-Jenkins)

* Best Book of a Musical: Maybe Happy Ending (Will Aronson and Hue Park)

* Best Original Score (Music and/or Lyrics) Written for the Theatre: Maybe Happy Ending (Will Aronson and Hue Park)

* Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role in a Play: Sarah Snook, for The Picture of Dorian Gray

* Best Performance by an Actor in a Featured Role in a Play: Francis Jue, for Yellow Face

* Best Performance by an Actress in a Featured Role in a Play: Kara Young, for Purpose

* Best Performance by an Actor in a Featured Role in a Musical: Jak Malone, for Operation Mincemeat: A New Musical

* Best Performance by an Actress in a Featured Role in a Musical: Natalie Venetia Belcon, for Buena Vista Social Club

* Best Scenic Design of a Play: Miriam Buether and 59, for Stranger Things: The First Shadow

* Best Scenic Design of a Musical: Dane Laffrey and George Reeve, for Maybe Happy Ending

* Best Costume Design of a Play: Marg Horwell, for The Picture of Dorian Gray

* Best Costume Design of a Musical: Paul Tazwell, for Death Becomes Her

* Best Lighting Design of a Play: Jon Clark, for Stranger Things: The First Shadow

* Best Lighting Design of a Musical: Jack Knowles, for Sunset Blvd.

* Best Sound Design of a Play: Paul Arditti, for Stranger Things: The First Shadow

* Best Sound Design of a Musical: Jonathan Deans, for Buena Vista Social Club

* Best Choreography: Patricia Delgado and Justin Peck, for Buena Vista Social Club

* Best Orchestrations: Marco Paguia, for Buena Vista Social Club

* Special Tony Award for Lifetime Achievement in the Theatre: Harvey Fierstein

* Special Tony Award: The musicians who make up the band of Buena Vista Social Club, and The Illusions & Technical Effects of Stranger Things: The First Shadow

* Isabelle Stevenson Tony Award: Celia Keenan-Bolger

* Regional Theatre Tony Award: The Muny

* Tony Honors for Excellence in the Theatre: Great Performances, Michael Price, New 42, and The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts