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Hosting one of the best TONY awards nights ever, Pink established herself as a Broadway star. A pop music icon, she seemed an unlikely candidate for the job but from the moment she lowered herself mid-stage, a hanging vision of Mary Martin as Peter Pan at Radio City Music Hall, she was in turns hilarious, poised, sensational, segueing into a moment from Wicked. That was an opening for the ages—and she just got started! 

Maybe her best was “Lady Marmalade” or the skit from Chicago. When Lesley Manville got her TONY for her performance as Oedipus’ wife—er, mother, in a grand gesture to bring in the women she beat—Rose Byrne, Carrie Coon, Susannah Flood, Kelli O’Hara–, she asked for a playwright to create a vehicle for five female characters. For a musical, make that six to include Pink.

This great night belonged to the Best Revivals, Ragtime and Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman. Even though John Lithgow as Raoul Dahl in Giant was always the front runner for Best Actor, everyone wished the award would go to Nathan Lane as Willy Loman. He put his heart, soul and abundant talent into the heartbreaking role. Christopher Abbott who plays Biff said he had never seen this classic play—hoping he would one day be in it. Laurie Metcalf reinvented the characterization of doting wife.

With the flamboyance of Rocky Horror Picture Show and Cats: The Jellicle Ball, a family drama seems antique. Then again, the Broadway stage remains an endless affirmation of identity and self-invention through fantasy and art—and as every winner put it, the very best place to be.