Here’s to some real-life New Directions! In one of the earliest awards handed out in the 76th Tony Awards telecast on CBS and Paramount+, history was made as Alex Newell became the first-ever openly non-binary actor to win a Tony award, in the Best Performance by a Featured Actor in a Musical category, for their showstopping role as cornpone character Lulu in the musical comedy “Shucked.”
Then, in the show’s final hour, that record was upheld by nonbinary actor J. Harrison Ghee, who won the Tony Award for Best Performance by a Leading Actor in a Musical in the Marc Shaiman/Scott Wittman tuner “Some Like it Hot”, based on Billy Wilder’s classic 1950s comedy. Ghee, late of musicals such as “Kinky Boots” and “Mrs. Doubtfire”, was a favorite for their bold reimagining of the Jerry/Daphne role made famous by Jack Lemmon in the original film."
People talk about the “difficulty” of explaining lgbt stuff to kids, but trying to explain to my parents why Alex Newell was nominated for featured actor is so much more challenging and either I did a bad job explaining or they are being deliberately difficult about it, or both.