--- description: Sunday night's Tony awards show was pretty much devoid of surprises. The fact that Hamilton didn't win everything was the most notable news. title: Tonys Wrap: 'Hamilton' Falls Short of Equalling Record image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blte6eec28504fa1074/6988977b524fc0f088df8588/gettyimages-539764878.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  * [Entertainment](/section/entertainment/) ## Entertainment Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close # _Hamilton_ Falls One Award Short of Equalling the Tony Awards Record by [Richard Zoglin](/author/richard-zoglin/) ## Richard Zoglin Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close Jun 13, 2016 8:12 AM CUT  Producer Jeffrey Seller (C) accepts the Tony award for Best Musical for "Hamilton" onstage with his cast and creative team during the 70th Annual Tony Awards at The Beacon Theatre on June 12, 2016 in New York City. Producer Jeffrey Seller (C) accepts the Tony award for Best Musical for "Hamilton" onstage with his cast and creative team during the 70th Annual Tony Awards at The Beacon Theatre on June 12, 2016 in New York City.Kevin Mazur—Getty Images for Tony Awards Productions by [Richard Zoglin](/author/richard-zoglin/) ## Richard Zoglin Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close Jun 13, 2016 8:12 AM CUT It was hardly a surprise that Sunday night’s Tony awards show was pretty much devoid of surprises. Start to finish, it was a _Hamilton_ lovefest: from the cast’s rapping introduction of host James Corden, through Lin-Manuel Miranda’s rhyming acceptance speeches, to the big finale, as the show’s cast returned for yet another number to accompany the closing credits. Good thing _Waitress_ didn’t win; that might have been awkward_._ But _Hamilton_ did win, nearly everything. The “nearly,” in fact, was the evening’s most notable news. _Hamilton_ snagged a total of 11 Tony awards, including Best Musical, but just missed the record of 12 set by _The Producers_ in 2001\. Reason for the shortfall: Phillipa Soo was passed over in the best actress category for _The Color Purple’s_ Cynthia Erivo, and a pesky little scenic design award went to _She Loves Me._ Those hiccups aside, the Hamiltonys were a perfect capstone to what may be the most extraordinary opening year for any Broadway show of modern times. To be sure, there have been some mammoth hits and impossible tickets over the past few years, from _The Lion King_ to _The Book of Mormon_. But nothing has quite matched the mix of critical acclaim, cultural impact and box-office frenzy wrought by Lin-Manuel Miranda’s hip-hop take on the most misunderstood Founding Father. Demand for _Hamilton_ tickets is so off the charts that the show’s producers just raised the price of premium seats (a block of prime orchestra seats set aside for high rollers) to an unheard of $849, in an effort to thwart scalpers, who often charge much more. The degree to which _Hamilton_ has seeped into the national consciousness is in some ways puzzling. Since the show began performances on Broadway 11 months ago, the number of people who have actually seen it amounts to no more than 500,000 — less than a tenth of the audience for a single episode of _Game of Thrones_ or _Mike and Molly_. And yet people from Peoria to Portland seem transfixed by it. When I went back to see the show on Broadway for a second time a few weeks ago, the audience reaction had ratcheted up by an order of magnitude: almost every actor’s first entrance was greeted by an eruption of applause — the kind of reaction Fonzie used to get each time he stepped in front of the studio audience on _Happy Days._ Much of the credit, of course, goes to the popularity of the soundtrack album, which has introduced the show to millions who will never see it on Broadway. The predominantly hip-hop score, moreover, has captivated an audience much younger than the usual cadre of Broadway theatergoers — without alienating the oldsters, who are probably relieved to encounter rap songs that they can actually listen to without a censoring button. The buzz over _Hamilton_ is also a reflection of the enormous success Broadway has had over the past few years in marketing itself to the rest of the country. An art form that once seemed on the verge of irrelevance — elitist, expensive, confined to a single city, appealing to an older, culturally homogeneous audience — has managed to carve an outsize role for itself in the cultural conversation. It may not be the mainstream force it was when Arthur Miller, Tennessee Williams and Rodgers & Hammerstein were household names. But Broadway still has cachet: tourists plan trips around it; Hollywood stars more than ever seem drawn to it. (Bruce Willis, Jennifer Hudson and Oscar-winner Lupita Nyong’o were among those who helped goose the box office this season.) Often overlooked, too, is the visibility Broadway is getting on TV’s late-night talk shows. After so many years when the LA-based Johnny Carson and Jay Leno dominated the booking wars, three of the five network late-night hosts — the _Tonight Show’s_ Jimmy Fallon, CBS’s Stephen Colbert and NBC’s Seth Meyers — are now based in New York and often draw on Broadway shows for celebrity guests and musical numbers. Not since the _Ed Sullivan Show_ has TV given Broadway such a consistent promotional boost. Then there’s the Tony show itself, the biggest and best commercial for Broadway ever devised. This year’s show, with a smooth hosting job by Corden and a bounty of well-staged musical numbers (along with some tastefully sober reminders of the tragedy in Orlando earlier in the day) was one of the most slickly produced and entertaining yet. Not too many years ago CBS was thinking of canceling the low-rated show, letting it drift into the wilderness of cable. The network stuck with it, but issued strict orders that the show not run even a minute past 11 p.m. Eastern time, so as not to cut into the local news. This year the show ran 20 minutes long, and CBS didn’t seem to mind. Nobody messes with _Hamilton._ ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4365931/tonys-2016-recap-wrap-hamilton/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4365931/tonys-2016-recap-wrap-hamilton/"},"headline":"Hamilton Falls One Award Short of Equalling the Tony Awards Record","datePublished":"2016-06-13T08:12:07.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-22T22:33:14.479Z","description":"The fact that it didn't win everything was the evening's most notable news","url":"https://time.com/4365931/tonys-2016-recap-wrap-hamilton/","keywords":["Theater","Musicals","Tony Awards","Hamilton"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blte6eec28504fa1074/6988977b524fc0f088df8588/gettyimages-539764878.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Richard Zoglin","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/richard-zoglin/"}],"articleSection":"Entertainment","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blte6eec28504fa1074/6988977b524fc0f088df8588/gettyimages-539764878.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"2016 Tony Awards - Show","caption":"2016 Tony Awards - Show","creditText":"Kevin Mazur—Getty Images for Tony Awards Productions","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/entertainment/","name":"Entertainment"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4365931/tonys-2016-recap-wrap-hamilton/","name":"Hamilton Falls One Award Short of Equalling the Tony Awards Record"}}]}] ```