Some Like It Hot: The Musical, which opened on Broadway in December 2022, won four Tony Awards last night, having garnered a total of thirteen nominations. J. Harrison Ghee, who played Jerry/Daphne, was named Best Actor in a Musical, becoming the first non-binary person to win in this category – alongside Alex Newell, named as Best Featured Actor in a Musical for Shucked.
Adapted from the classic 1959 comedy, Some Like It Hot: The Musical differs from its predecessor in that Jerry/Daphne ultimately embraces her queer identity. Whereas in the movie, the same character (as played by Jack Lemmon) remains hilariously befuddled until the final scene when he tears off his wig, thus ‘outing’ himself as a man – to which his unflappable beau responds: ‘Well, nobody’s perfect.’
Some Like It Hot: The Musical also won the Tony awards for Best Orchestrations (Bryan Carter and Charlie Rosen); Best Choreography (Casey Nicholaw); and Best Costume Designs (Gregg Barnes.) A full cast recording is now available to stream or download, with CD and vinyl releases to follow; and a songbook has also been published.
Among the other Tony Awards contenders, Wendell Pierce was nominated as Best Lead Actor in a Play, heading an all-black cast in a revival of Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman. However, the winner in this category was Sean Hayes for Good Night, Oscar – a play about Oscar Levant, the musician and raconteur whose outrageous remarks about Marilyn and others (see here) contrasted with his unhappy private life.
The Marilyn Report 
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