Cynthia Erivo was ready for her close-up on the 2025 Tony Awards.
The host, a Tony winner herself, who also has an Emmy and a Grammy, was joined by Oprah Winfrey backstage at the top of the CBS ceremony for a moment that paid homage to both this year’s Tony-nominated musical revival Sunset Blvd. and a memorable moment on the press tour for the first Wicked film, where co-star Ariana Grande grabbed Erivo’s finger.
Backstage, Erivo walked over to Winfrey and asked what she was doing there and the mogul said she had to be there.
Erivo asked, “What do you do when everybody is telling you what you need to do?”
Winfrey replied, “Forget about them babe, the only thing you need to do is just be yourself.”
With Winfrey pointing at her, Erivo grabbed her finger, just as Grande did to her on the Wicked press tour, and smiled.
Erivo then took the stage, wearing a shimmering long, red gown with white accents, and belted out a musical introduction to the power of Broadway, with a chorus in which she crooned, “Sometimes all you need is a song.”
Midway through her performance, Erivo was joined by Broadway Inspirational Voices, sporting white ensembles, who walked up the aisles and assembled behind her onstage.
She also went into the audience, getting Kristin Chenoweth, Aaron Tveit and Adam Lambert to sing the chorus with her. At another point, Gayle King was spotted singing in the audience.
During her song, Erivo cited nominees Oh, Mary; Maybe Happy Endings; Sarah Snook; and George Clooney as well as Glengarry Glen Ross star Kieran Culkin, Othello star Denzel Washington and McNeal star Robert Downey, Jr.
And near the end of her performance, she sang, “When the world is looking gloomy, let that curtain rise. Broadway is a place we all belong.”
After the performance, Erivo delivered a brief opening monologue, in which she again referenced the Wicked/Wizard of Oz universe: “As they apparently say in a very fertile piece of intellectual property, ‘There’s no place like home.’”
She went on to cite first-time nominees Cole Escola, Sadie Sink, Louis McCartney and “up-and-comer” George Clooney, who played along with the bit from his seat in the audience.
She proclaimed, “Broadway is back,” before joking, “If we don’t run out of actors from Succession.”
Appropriately, the first award went to Succession alum Sarah Snook, winning best performance by an actress in a leading role in a play for The Picture of Dorian Gray.
After the first commercial break, Erivo returned to advise winners to keep their acceptance speeches brief, saying she might sing them off.
“Don’t mess with me, I’ve been known to cast spells,” she joked, in another Wicked allusion.
Indeed, when Kara Young, making history as the first Black performer to win two Tonys in a row, went over time during her speech, audio of Erivo singing “My Way” began to play her off.
She later spent some time in the balcony, saying, “Everybody loves a balcony seat, except, as we learned this season, Abraham Lincoln,” with a deadpan allusion to Oh, Mary.
She also offered that the balcony is the “safest place to watch Jonathan Groff sing, if getting spit on is not your thing,” referring to his well-known performance quirk.
She went on to jokingly introduce Groff as “a man who makes everyone wet.”
Erivo also delivered a black-and-white news brief opening reminiscent of Good Night, and Good Luck, recapping the Broadway season.
More to come.
