{"id":488699,"date":"2026-06-08T08:27:08","date_gmt":"2026-06-08T08:27:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/488699\/"},"modified":"2026-06-08T08:27:08","modified_gmt":"2026-06-08T08:27:08","slug":"john-lithgow-is-oldest-man-to-win-an-acting-tony-at-80","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/488699\/","title":{"rendered":"John Lithgow is oldest man to win an acting Tony at 80"},"content":{"rendered":"

Schmigadoon! and Death of a Salesman were among the big winners at the Tony Awards in New York as actor John Lithgow made history.<\/p>\n

On a night when 80-year-old Lithgow became the oldest man to win a competitive acting Tony when he claimed Best Lead Actor in a Play for Giant, Schmigadoon! took the Best New Musical award and Death of a Salesman won Best Play Revival among six gongs on the night.<\/p>\n

Schmigadoon! is an adaptation of an Apple TV series and parodies Broadway classics like The Music Man and Oklahoma!, while focusing on a couple who find themselves in a Brigadoon-style fantasy land.<\/p>\n

\"NEW
\nLithgow claimed Best Lead Actor in a Play for Giant<\/p>\n

The award for Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role in a Play went to Lesley Manville for her role in Oedipus.<\/p>\n

Best New Play went to Bess Wohl\u2019s Liberation, which also won the Pulitzer Prize for drama earlier this year.<\/p>\n

The win makes Wohl only the fourth woman to win a Best Play Tony, along with Wendy Wasserstein, Yasmina Reza and Frances Goodrich.<\/p>\n

“I want to honour women everywhere who have the courage to use their voice,” said Wohl.<\/p>\n

“And to all the girls out there: May you speak your truth, and may the world be wise enough to listen.”<\/p>\n

\"Lesley
\nLesley Manville accepts the Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role in a Play award for Oedipus<\/p>\n

The Arthur Miller classic Death of a Salesman won the 1949 Tony for Best New Play as well as the Best Revival category in 1984, 1999 and 2012.<\/p>\n

Among its six awards was a gong for Roseanne star Laurie Metcalf, who plays Willy Loman\u2019s wife opposite Nathan Lane in the revival.<\/p>\n

Ragtime, a musical which depicts an America being remade by immigration, racial violence, industrial wealth and political unrest, won the Best Musical Revival.<\/p>\n

Lithgow, who won this year for playing children\u2019s writer Roald Dahl in Mark Rosenblatt\u2019s production of Giant, said: “Two Tony bookends with 53 years between them.<\/p>\n

“In those years, I have worked with hundreds of just fantastic theatre artists.<\/p>\n

“I\u2019ve had dozens and dozens of ecstatic moments on the stage, but I have to tell you right now, this moment has got to be one of the best.”<\/p>\n

\"US
\n Mary Yeager and John Lithgow attend the 79th Annual Tony Awards at Radio City Music Hall<\/p>\n

Lithgow\u2019s first Tony was in 1973 when he was named Best Factor in a play in The Changing Room.<\/p>\n

The awards show was hosted by pop star Pink, who kicked off proceedings by spinning and then dangling uncomfortably from a harness over the stage dressed as Peter Pan.<\/p>\n

After a brief skit with former host Neil Patrick Harris, she put on a top hat and performed Lady Marmalade alongside a cast which included former Glee alumni Lea Michele and rapper Megan Thee Stallion.<\/p>\n

Source: Press Association<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Schmigadoon! and Death of a Salesman were among the big winners at the Tony Awards in New York…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":488700,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[321,93,61,60],"class_list":["post-488699","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-celebrities","tag-entertainment","tag-ie","tag-ireland"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/488699","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=488699"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/488699\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/488700"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=488699"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=488699"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=488699"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}