There She Is, Miss America
Sarah Snook Wins Queen of Broadway (and My Heart) at the 2025 TONYs
Hey everyone,
Happy Pride (again) and happy Monday! I’ve never considered myself a theatre gay or dork, but I know and love many of them—and honestly, what’s gayer than the Tonys during Pride Month? (But really though). Here’s a little dispatch from my couch live at the Tonys:
First, major congrats to the incredible Sarah Snook for winning the Tony for Best Female Performer. It would’ve been criminal to overlook that performance in The Picture of Dorian Gray. I’m still thinking about it—especially how effortlessly hot she is while being the hardest working actress on Broadway. (Also, Cole Escola dressed as Bernadette Peters while picking up their Best Actor Award really made this a night for the girls). A woman of the people, Sarah celebrated her crowning win at Raising Cane’s over a pile of fried chicken. Even though she’s Australian, she’s Miss America to me.
Now that she’s halfway to an EGOT, can we please start talking about her constantly? I’ve been waiting for this moment forever. People are finally catching on to how woefully underrated she is. Succession was career-defining, of course, but this was straight up life-changing. (I think I even cried a little bit! And somehow not related to the obvious existential dread expected from watching a rendition of Dorian Gray when you’ve just hit 40?!)
If you didn’t see it, you really missed out on something special. In fact, I had to stop myself from maxing out my credit card to see it again—something extra tempting because it was somehow the most reasonably priced show on Broadway.
Theater is an expensive hobby, but it’s even worse in New York City. Even living in Manhattan just 15 minutes away from where these shows are playing every night, I simply do not have the time or money to see most of them. And now that Hollywood stars have returned to the stage, Broadway tickets have skyrocketed to the point that actual Manhattan residents cannot afford to see them.
I use the term “actual” to describe Manhattan residents because I don’t consider people who make enough to afford $5,000/mo. and $7,000/mo. apartments and parade around on social media to be real people. I consider myself a real person who can’t afford to see it, even if there’s a pretty big economic difference between me and my neighbors: Brooke Shields, Bradley Cooper, and the kid who walks around the West Village every day in whitey-tighties, a captain’s hat, and a set of rainbow angel wings.
I also don’t consider “West Village girls” to be my neighbors or actual residents given that most of them will probably leave within the next decade after cosplaying Carrie Bradshaw for a few years while contributing nothing to the neighborhood except high rents and really bad NYMag features. If you’re not willing to co-exist with the ghost of some sad writer that’s likely haunting your apartment, what are you even doing here?
I’m assuming I fall somewhere on the low end of an already high spectrum here, and therefore tickets could stand to be a little cheaper so that I can continue to brag about my bohemian New York City writer lifestyle.
To put into perspective how accustomed we’ve become to feeling grateful begging for scraps like Oliver at the gruel line: this year’s Tonys had the audacity to sell $500 raffle tickets for a *chance* to sit in nosebleed at the awards show. What is money, even? Who are these people? This is why corporate endowments exist, but they’re being rapidly pulled because Trump is a giant baby who hangs out with hateful turds. And this is the world we live in now where art and nature are premiums.
While theater tickets have always been expensive and a special occasion thing, nosebleed tickets have gotten so insane that people working on Broadway can’t even afford to go. Tickets for Oh, Mary, for example, cost nearly $300 for nosebleed with an obstructed view. Tickets for Vanya were also nearly $300—another one-person show I assumed would be quite good, but not worth blowing my bank account on when it was already streaming on the National Theatre Channel.
At the high end, tickets for Good Night, and Good Luck started at around $400. Did I want to spend that to see George Clooney and Ilana Glazer? No, not really. Next. Meanwhile, Denzel Washington is out here telling People magazine that God has given him the divine gift of being worth $900 tickets. Unfortunately, I am not so blessed and decided I could make better use of my funds elsewhere.
Earlier this year, I lucked out and used my TDF membership to snag some deeply discounted tickets to see Isabelle Huppert in Mary Said What She Said—a tedious hour-and-a-half one-woman show, spoken entirely in French with subtitles moving rapidly above the stage as Huppert delivered exactly what one might expect from her: abstract, morose poetry. Later, those tickets ran more modestly starting at $105—mainly because they were at NYU—and I couldn’t help but notice that women’s shows were generally running cheaper than their male counterparts 👀. (Strangely, some completely shitfaced guy in a MAGA hat showed up and started hooting and hollering at her from the balcony—a bizarre caricature that felt curiously out of place. I’m still chewing on that one).
The Picture of Dorian Gray came out around the same time as Glengarry Glen Ross. Tickets for that one were a little higher than I wanted to pay—around $200. While I’m sure Kiernan Culkin did a fabulous job (after all, he did win an Oscar shortly after) and probably had phenomenal chemistry with Bob Odenkirk and Bill Burr that would certainly be worth the price. But when I saw the advertisements for Dorian Gray, I was captivated. Sorry Roman, I’ve gotta go with Shiv on this one!
Because Sarah plays so many characters, the promos were vague about what was actually in store. Snook isn’t the first to play Oscar Wilde’s titular character, but there was something very cinematic about the promos—almost Hunger Games-esque. It seemed to have a very high-level production value. Which is why it was so strange that opening weekend tickets were so much cheaper. I ended up getting mezzanine tickets for around $90—but the production was so smartly executed that the view was still excellent. And what I saw blew my mind:
SARAH SNOOK PLAYS 26 FUCKING CHARACTERS FOR NEARLY TWO HOURS STRAIGHT—with full-on costume changes and carefully orchestrated visual sequencing among 10 different camera operators. She wasn’t just remembering lines and choreography—she was constantly shapeshifting while breaking the fourth wall and the fifth dimension. Literally life-changing and genre-defying. The fact we’re not having full-on meltdowns talking about what many of us witnessed watching Dorian Gray is just a travesty.
Honestly, I couldn’t bring myself to care about the Patti Lupone drama. She’s a noted (and legendary) unapologetic bitch—the very definition of a broad and she’d probably say that herself—and stirring up some media controversy might’ve been the only way anyone remembered her show at all. I certainly forgot I saw it after Dorian Gray. And it was all I could think of when Patti decided to say some disparaging shit about Audra McDonald out of jealousy from being snubbed this year: “Why is no one talking about Sarah Snook and this fucking play? (Also, does this Lupone/McDonald controversy really need a 500-person signed petition?)”
Everyone spent months and months fawning over Oh, Mary and Hamilton but there were maybe like three articles and one Colbert apparence about Dorian Gray total during its entire run. No shade to either production, but every single theater person who has seen this play that I’ve spoken with has agreed with me that it was undeniably one of the best things they’ve ever seen.
Anyway, the good news is that Sarah Snook is unproblematic, undeniably brilliant, a woman who is for the people, and now halfway to an EGOT. She deserves a bajillion dollars and every role ever written. Kip Williams has already teased a new production of Dracula starring Cynthia Erivo, coming to London’s West End early next year where she will follow a similar format of playing 23 characters and I am SUPER TEMPTED to make an excuse to go see it (even though I absolutely hate flying now and our planet is a fucking tire fire that makes it hard to plan things).
I think we should all go because honestly, some of you really missed the boat with Sarah. If we’re lucky, they’ll be kind enough to put that on National Theatre someday because that play was a triumph and inspiring AF.
Going to watch Drop Dead Gorgeous now—talk to you later.
-C
MORE ON PIPE DREAMS BY THE WEED WITCH
Weird Sisters, Silver Screens, and Meeting Your Heroes During Mercury Retrograde
Yesterday, Today and TAMAR with Performance Artist Tammy Lang