The Band's Visit dominates, wins 10 Tony Awards

The two-part spectacle Harry Potter and the Cursed Child also captured six Tonys

Orin Wolf, centre, and the cast and crew of 'The Band's Visit' accept the award for best musical at the 72nd annual Tony Awards at Radio City Music Hall on Sunday, June 10, 2018, in New York. Michael Zorn / Invision / AP

The cast and crew of 'The Band's Visit' accept the award for best musical at the 72nd annual Tony Awards. Michael Zorn / Invision / AP

LaChanze, of the cast of "Summer: The Donna Summer Musical," performs at the 72nd annual Tony Awards at Radio City Music Hall. Michael Zorn / Invision / AP

The cast of "Once on This Island" perform at the 72nd annual Tony Awards at Radio City Music Hall. Michael Zorn / Invision / AP

The Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School drama department perform 'Seasons of Love' at the 72nd annual Tony Awards. Michael Zorn / Invision / AP

Bruce Springsteen performs at the 72nd annual Tony Awards at Radio City Music Hall. Michael Zorn / Invision / AP

Melody Herzfeld, drama teacher at Marjorie Stoneman Douglas High School, accepts the award for excellence in theatre education at the 72nd annual Tony Awards at Radio City Music Hall. Michael Zorn / Invision / AP

Students from the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School drama department react after performing 'Seasons of Love' at the 72nd annual Tony Awards. Michael Zorn / Invision / AP

Playwright Tony Kushner, centre, and the cast and crew of "Angels in America" accept the award for best revival of a play at the 72nd annual Tony Awards at Radio City Music Hall. Michael Zorn / Invision / AP

Katrina Lenk, right, accepts the award for leading actress in a musical for "The Band's Visit" from presenter Leslie Odom Jr. Michael Zorn / Invision / AP

Tony Shalhoub, right, accepts the award for leading actor in a musical for his work in "The Band's Visit" from presenter Kelli O'Hara. Michael Zorn / Invision / AP

Co-hosts Sara Bareilles, left, and Josh Groban, on stage at the 72nd annual Tony Awards. Michael Zorn / Invision / AP

Patti Murin, from the cast of "Frozen," performs at the 72nd annual Tony Awards. Michael Zorn / Invision / AP

Katrina Lenk, left, and Tony Shalhoub, from the cast of "The Band's Visit," perform at the 72nd annual Tony Awards. Michael Zorn / Invision / AP

Producer Sonia Friedman and the cast and crew of "Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, Parts One and Two" accept the award for best play at the 72nd annual Tony Awards. Michael Zorn / Invision / AP

Ken Davenport, centre, and the cast and crew of "Once On This Island" accept the award for best musical revival. Michael Zorn / Invision / AP

Actor Robert De Niro speaks before introducing Bruce Springsteen's performance. Lucas Jackson / Reuters

The American, grown-up musical The Band's Visit outmuscled the acclaimed and sprawling British import Harry Potter and the Cursed Child for the most Tony Awards on Sunday, capturing 10 statuettes, including best musical, on a night where the theme of acceptance flowed through the telecast.

The Band's Visit is based on a 2007 film of the same name and centres on members of an Egyptian police orchestra booked to play a concert at an Israeli city who accidentally end up in the wrong town. Its embrace of foreign cultures working together found a sweet spot with Tony voters.

"In The Band's Visit, music gives people hope and makes borders disappear," producer Orin Wolf said upon accepting the best new musical crown, saying it offers a message of unity in a world that "more and more seems bent on amplifying our differences."

Lebanese-American actor Tony Shalhoub, the Monk star who won as best leading man in a musical for his work on The Band's Visit, connected the win to his father's 1920 immigration from Lebanon to New York's Ellis Island at age 8. "Tonight, I celebrate him and all of those in his family who journeyed before him and with him and after him," he said.

The show's Katrina Lenk, who won best actress in a musical, said the production "filled her stupid little heart with so much joy." She dedicated her award in part to the iconic Egyptian singer Umm Kulthum.

The Band's Visit also won statuettes for best direction, orchestration, sound design, best book and score, lighting and featured actor Ari'el Stachel, who gave a heartfelt speech about his past.

"For so many years of my life I pretended I was not a Middle Eastern person," he said, addressing his parents in the audience. He thanked the creators of the show "for being courageous for telling a small story about Arabs and Israelis getting along at a time that we need that more than ever."

The show's director, David Cromer, said the musical is also about loneliness and despair, and asked everyone to reach out to anyone for whom "despair is overwhelming."

The two-part spectacle Harry Potter and the Cursed Child captured six Tonys, including best play, book, lighting, sound design, orchestrations and director for John Tiffany.

A British revival of Angels in America, Tony Kushner's monumental, two-part drama about AIDS, life and love during the 1980s, grabbed three big awards, including best play revival and acting trophies for Andrew Garfield and Nathan Lane.

Kushner took the stage and pointed out there were 21 weeks until the midterm elections in the United States: "Twenty-one weeks to save our democracy, to heal our country and to heal our planet."

In one of the ceremony's most mesmerising moments, Melody Herzfeld, the heroic drama teacher who nurtured many of the young people demanding change following the February school shooting in Parkland, Florida, was honoured from the Tony Award stage.

Click to watch her acceptance speech: 

Herzfeld, the one-woman drama department at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, was cheered by the crowd at Radio City Music Hall. Herzfeld saved 65 lives by barricading students into a small classroom closet on Valentine's Day when police say a former student went on a school rampage, killing 17 people.

She then later encouraged many of her pupils to lead the nationwide movement for gun reform. Members of Herzfeld's drama department took to the Tony stage to serenade her with Seasons of Love from the musical Rent.

In other wins, 82-year-old Glenda Jackson added to her impressive resume with a Tony Award for best actress in a play for her work in a revival of Edward Albee's Three Tall Women. That show also yielded the featured actress win to Rosanne star Laurie Metcalf.

Billy Joel gave his friend Bruce Springsteen a special Tony Award. "This is deeply appreciated, and thanks for making me feel so welcome on your block," The Boss said. Later, Springsteen performed My Hometown on the piano from his sold-out one-man show, Springsteen on Broadway. (Robert De Niro, who took the stage to introduce Springsteen's performance, started off with an expletive directed at President Donald Trump, which garnered him a sustained standing ovation from the crowd.)

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Co-hosts Josh Groban and Sara Bareilles, talented and likeable if not terribly thrilling, made somewhat subdued hosts, opening the show with a self-parodying duet on piano for all the losers out there — including them. "Let's not forget that 90 per cent of us leave empty-handed tonight. So this is for the people who lose," they sang.

They went on to cover Sia's Chandelier — substituting her lyrics for ones that complained about singing live eight shows a week — and sang hits from Andrew Lloyd Webber shows and then closed the telecast with a song about Broadway dreamers.

Two of the shows going into the night with most nominations — Tina Fey's Mean Girls and SpongeBob SquarePants, with 12 nods each — found the night tough. Mean Girls won nothing and SpongeBob SquarePants got only one for best set design.

The revival of Carousel won two awards — choreography and for Lindsay Mendez, who won best featured actress in a musical. She accepted in tears, recounting that when she moved to New York, she was told to change her last name to Matthews or she wouldn't work. She said she was happy to be in a production that "celebrates diversity and individuality." To all artists out there, she said: "Just be your true self and the world will take note."

Another show highlight was the lively performance by the cast of Once on This Island that included a sand-filled beach, real water and a goat. Onstage guests were volunteers and staffers from three organisations that bring relief to areas impacted by natural disasters. The show went on to win best musical revival, in an upset, beating My Fair Lady and Carousel.