J. Harrison Ghee, Alex Newell are first nonbinary actors to win Tonys
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Alex Newell became the first openly nonbinary actor to win a Tony Award when they claimed best featured actor in a musical Sunday for their scene-stealing turn in the pun-packed comedy “Shucked.” And less than an hour later, “Some Like It Hot” star J. Harrison Ghee became the second for their lead performance as a musician on a journey of gender discovery.
“My mother raised me to understand that my gifts that God gave me were not about me, to use them to be effective in the world to help somebody else’s journey,” Ghee said. “So thank you for teaching me how to live, how to love, how to give. For every trans, nonbinary, gender nonconforming human, whoever was told you couldn’t be seen, this is for you.”
Ghee, 33, plays Jerry/Daphne, a musician on the run in “Some Like It Hot,” a flashy musical adaptation of the beloved 1959 Billy Wilder film. Newell, 30, plays the whiskey distiller Lulu in “Shucked,” Brandy Clark, Shane McAnally and Robert Horn’s musical about desperate corn farmers in a plucky Midwestern town.
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“Thank you for seeing me, Broadway,” Newell said. “I should not be up here as a queer, nonbinary, fat, Black little baby from Massachusetts. To anyone that thinks that they can’t do it, I’m going to look you dead in your face [and say] that you can do anything you put your mind to.”
The 76th Tony Awards kicked off “live and unscripted” June 11 amid the ongoing writers strike. (Video: Julie Yoon/The Washington Post)
Toby Marlow became the first openly nonbinary Tony winner last year, when he shared best original score with his “Six” co-composer Lucy Moss. Newell and Ghee were the first nonbinary acting nominees in the show’s 76-show history.
Ghee and Newell’s victories came four months after Justin David Sullivan, a nonbinary actor starring in “& Juliet,” announced they were withdrawing from Tonys consideration because the American Theatre Wing still uses gendered categories.
In a social media post, Sullivan wrote: “Because I was told I had no other option but to choose between one of the two gendered categories in which I would be eligible, I felt that I had no choice but to abstain from being considered for a nomination this season. I could not in good faith move forward with denying any part of my identity to conform to a system and structure that does not hold space for people like me.”
The Tonys said in a statement: “We recognize that the current acting categories are not fully inclusive, and we are currently in discussion about how to best adjust them to address this. Unfortunately, we are still in process on this and our rules do not allow us to make changes once a season has begun. We are working thoughtfully to ensure that no member of our community feel excluded in future seasons.”
Speaking to Variety earlier this year, Newell explained why they decided to submit in the featured actor category.
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“The standard has always been a male is an actor and a female as an actress. And I don’t like that,” Newell said. “I appreciate that the categories are separate to give cis women, and women in general, an actual fighting chance to win awards in such a male-dominated field. If we can create that, we can create more lanes for other people who don’t want to stick to those two categories. I think me choosing actor, I hope, will be a spark to use that word as it was meant to the art of acting.”
Discussing the topic in an interview with the Daily Beast, Ghee said, “I’m not going to put myself on this pedestal like, ‘I need it to change today.’ ... I never go into things expecting to be the person that changes everything. I’m just showing up and meeting the moment.”
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Source: The Washington Post
