2020 Tony Awards: Live Reactions from Inside the Winner's Circle!

The Tony Awards are back and BroadwayWorld is bringing you the insider scoop from the virtual Winner's Room!

Stick with us all night long to hear the star's reactions as they step off the Winter Garden stage as newly-minted Tony Award winners!

Check this page throughout the evening for all the best quotes, quips, and anecdotes from inside the press room as the Tony Awards make their highly anticipated return!

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Carmen Pavlovic and Bill Damaschke- Best Musical, Moulin Rouge! the Musical

On why bringing Moulin Rouge to Broadway is so special

Carmen Pavlovic- "For me, it's having the chance to meaningfully be part of the Broadway community. Broadway is held up as the best in the world. In the end there was only one place we could create the show. I'd always been told that as an outsider Broadway wouldn't accept us. But actually the opposite was true, we had a lovely time being here and being part of the community. So for me, it's being able to work at this level with this kind of artistry. It's been a great experience for me personally."

Bill Damaschke- "For me, I appreciate Carmen's vision and passion to support what, at the time were newcomers. Alex and Justin and Sonya, who were all recognized tonight, this was the biggest thing they'd ever done when we started working together, but their vision for the piece and their talent and who they were as human beings, they were absolutely right for it. These fresh, young, amazing talents. Bohemians, really. They really were the spirit of the show. To tell the story on this scale and to do it with these incredible, young talents was really thrilling."

Matthew Lopez - Best Play, The Inheritance

On the legacy of The Inheritance: "When I started to write the play, I felt incredibly disconnected from the gay community. I felt divorced from my own history and it was my attempt to understand it, to make contact with it, and to make peace in some ways with the parts of it that I have a less than ideal relationship with. I wanted to understand how being gay shaped my life; being a gay man who was a child during the epidemic, who came into his adulthood just as the antiretroviral treatments started to become widespread. Becoming a sexual being in New York City as a young gay man, having been taught the lesson that my sex life would kill me, I needed to unpack all that, I needed to understand it, I needed to get it all out. And I hope, having done all that, that others will come to the play with their own questions and the thing they're wrestling with and maybe not get all the answers that they're seeking from the play but hopefully that the play will begin to encourage them to seek themselves."

Adrienne Warren- Best Performance By A Lead Actress in a Musical, Tina the Tina Turner Musical

On winning a Tony and closing out her long run as Tina Turner: "It's such an incredible highlight in this journey for me. It feels so special that I could go out like this. This has been a nearly six year journey and I didn't really know that this day would come. I wasn't sure. I'm extremely moved by that but even more so, I'm moved that my presence in this industry is different than what it was when I started this show. When I started I felt like I had so much to prove and now I only want to do everything I can to make this industry better for those who come after me. And I'm thinking about that constantly, which allows me to just free up, do what I do, and just enjoy this last chapter of Tina with my cast and just have fun with it."

Aaron Tveit- Best Performance By A Lead Actor in a Musical, Moulin Rouge the Musical!

On returning to the stage after the shutdown: "Anything anyone ever took for granted about getting to express art in live theatre it's so vital. Many people, like myself, got into theatre to find a place where you belong and find a place where you can feel at home and feel comfortable and feel like yourself, those things can sometimes be forgotten in professional theatre. So I think that's what I really hope in returning after it was taken away from us that we get back to that original love of art and storytelling, and collectively being together, everyone as equals. Those are a lot of the things I've been thinking about. I love, love, love this, and I still can't believe that I've been blessed to get to keep doing this. Getting to play these shows every night for these audiences, and to share that experience, I'm just so lucky to do that And so to be back onstage after I was so desperately missing it...I can't believe that we're back and I can't believe that this is all happening at the same time! I'm a little bit in shock."

Danny Burstein - Best Performance By A Featured Actor in a Musical, Moulin Rouge! the Musical

On finally winning a Tony Award: "The award itself feels a little surreal. I didn't know what to expect. Of course you always want to win a little bit and you know there's great competition in the categories over the years. But I was certainly hoping because everywhere I go people are telling me, "Susan Lucci!" And it gets old, let me tell ya. [laughs] So I was hoping to get the monkey off my back just a little bit. But I also think that anyone could win the award at any particular time and it's apples and oranges. Any actor in my category this evening could have won, because they're so deserving. I truly believe that. But the theatre gods gave it to me this time and I'm very happy."

Mary Louise Parker- Best Performance by a Leading Actress in a Play, The Sound Inside

On being back at the Tony Awards: "It's really amazing. Because on the one hand it feels like you're just back at the Tony Awards, but there is definitely something different about it because every time someone says something poignant or personal you can hear everybody respond en masse. There's this collective commonality that I don't think I've ever experienced in a crowd that big before. It's why some of us who love the theatre so much and feel like that's our home and our family, you really feel that tonight in a way that's indescribable."

Andrew Bernap- Best Performance By A Lead Actor in a Play, The Inheritance

On what made The Inheritance so special: "The people who worked on this play were nothing short of incredible. We started our own little family and we got to be with each other for a long time in many different places. And the one group that I failed to mention, the true stars of this play, is the stage management team. This play would not even start and would come to a crashing halt had we not had an incredible stage management team at The Young Vic and here on Broadway, they are the real heroes. And everyone was just a beautiful person left and right. And when you can take risks with a good people, great results usually come out of it."

David Alan Grier - Best Performance By A Featured Actor in a Play, A Soldier's Play

On winning: "What it means for me today is much bigger than me, it means our industry has a way forward. I remember getting on the plane on March 16, 2020 and I did not know if I'd already done my last performance on Broadway and I didn't see a path forward because theatre is such an intimate art. And I just went home. I lost faith, I gained faith, I lost faith, I gained faith, and finally, there was a path forward and I'm just happy for everyone; in the theater, who works in the restaurants, the stagehands, costumers. It affects so many people and its such an integral part of New York. There is nothing like live theatre in New York on Broadway. I've done it all sorts of crazy ways and this is the best. It always has been. So I'm happy for the industry, that there's a path forward."

Lois Smith- Best Performance By A Featured Actress in A Play, The Inheritance

On The Inheritance: "I was enamored by its enormously inventive storytelling, and the characters. To commemorate and celebrate, really, those terrible plague years of AIDS. It's called The Inheritance and that seems to mean a lot because it's not as bad as it was, but it was really, very bad in the 80s, what it meant to be a homosexual person. People were frightened, of course, but there was so much hatred instead of solace, at first especially. That needs to be remembered. And it is."

Diablo Cody- Best Book of a Musical, Jagged Little Pill

On winning a Tony Award: "I'm still in the disbelief stage because this pandemic was so unexpected and so painful. For us to be dark for so long and finally coming back, for me that's the biggest emotional win here. But winning a Tony is very cool too and this is something I never expected would happen in my lifetime."

Alex Timbers- Best Director of a Musical, Moulin Rouge! the Musical

On reopening Moulin Rouge! and winning a Tony in the same weekend: "I got this text from Danny Burstein today that said, "I had no idea that the reopening of Moulin Rouge! would be received even more wildly by the audience than the first time." And I think that speaks to how much people miss theatre and miss being in a room with collective storytelling. It's been really thrilling and this is the most incredible capper to a wild and wonderful weekend."

Kenny Leon- Best Direction of a Play, A Soldier's Play

On racial progress on Broadway: "Of course, I don't think we've come far enough, but I do think that this reset has given us an opportunity to start anew. It was a good step to produce seven plays by African Americans on Broadway stages this season. But the proof is in the pudding and time will tell. So next year, at this time, what will it look like? How will we go about inviting other cultures to our stages. So I think it's just like everything in our country, we are at a critical time. With climate change, education of our young people, healthcare, and I think that Broadway needs to be a part of the solution. I lost two uncles and an aunt to Covid, but I think everything else about these last eighteen months has really been good for the country. Were it not for this reset, I don't think we would be talking about making changes on Broadway and making changes in our world that affect race and acceptance of all people. So I think it's a wonderful beginning and it's just going to take all of us because I feel that we can do better as people."

Sonya Tayeh- Best Choreography, Jagged Little Pill

On advice to young choreographers: "It's just to hold onto your voice and to keep pushing forward that voice, and believe in yourself. I know it's easier said that done, but I think that's what has gotten me through. Just trying to focus on who I am as an artist and learning how to celebrate that in myself, and being knowledgeable about dance, where it's been and where it's going, just helps to instill power, because I really feel that knowledge is power and holding true to that."

Catherine Zuber- Best Costume Design in a Musical, Moulin Rouge! the Musical

On what made the collaboration on Moulin Rouge! so special: "It's that Alex Timbers, our director, really brought out the best in all of us. He was so encouraging and inspiring to keep pushing and examining whatever it is our discipline was. He was like that with all the creatives and the cast and I think as a result, we all did our best work."

Best Orchestrations- Katie Kresek, Charlie Rosen, Matt Stine and Justin Levine, Moulin Rouge! the Musical

Justin Levine on winning: "At the moment, I would say shock. I actually flew in yesterday from london putting up the West End production of Moulin Rouge! I went straight from the airport to the theatre to see the show and that was a really emotional time. I think at a moment like this, the most important thing is the human side of it and it is so important to be recognized in this way but also to just see so many people able to get back to work and to do what they love."

Rob Howell- Best Scenic Design of a Play, A Christmas Carol

On returning to the theatre after shutdown: "Being in that room with a thousand people or whatever it is, when a human spirit comes out of the darkness and finds himself that seems to be pretty apt for the time we're living in right now. We're all coming out of the darkness and finding ourselves. And it's good for now, and it's been good in the past, but right now it's an even more profound thing to have discovered."

Derek McLane- Best Scenic Design of a Musical, Moulin Rouge! the Musical

"It's really kind of unbelievable. I went to the reopening on Friday night which is one of the most exciting experiences I've ever sat through. I think we must have had 10 or 11 or 12 standing ovations throughout the show. People are just so excited to be back, as was I. The shutdown was really hard on us. It was hard financially and it was really hard on our psyches. So it was an enormous relief. And to win this tonight for a show that I worked so hard on and that I'm so proud of feels really amazing."

Britton Smith - Special Tony Award, Broadway Advocacy Coalition

On how he feels accepting the Tony for the Broadway Advocacy Coalition: "Overwhelmed, proud, affirmed, seen. I feel seen by my ancestors. I feel seen by the spirits of freedom and liberation. I feel like Harriet Tubman is dancing in the clouds. I feel like people saw that the industry is excited to shift such an old history. This award represents that there is willingness to shift. I'm so proud that I got to represent, in a small way, the shift that has happened and will continue to happen. I'm overwhelmed, man."

Freestyle Love Supreme- Special Tony Award

On winning a Tony for improv: "Improvisers don't get to dream this dream that we get to a stage and it's the biggest stage and people take the artform seriously and it's not disposable. Also the obstacles we had to overcome to just be here were all miracles. This show is capable because we have this family that says, "I am willing to show up for you no matter what," and we also do that for the audience. And to have the Broadway League and the American Theatre Wing say that's of value, it means everything."

Julie Halston- Isabelle Stevenson Award

On winning the award: "It kind of means everything, for so many reasons. My late husband was a huge supporter of Broadway. He was a newscaster, but he was a big, big presence on Broadway and he passed away from pulmonary fibrosis which is why I now am on the board and fundraise for the pulmonary fibrosis foundation. Margo Lion who we saw tonight also passed from that disease. So, it means so much. One, that Broadway is reopening, that the city is reopening, but also as a way to honor the people I loved so much. To be honored with a Tony for my work with that is bringing two of my biggest passions, Broadway and my advocacy together."