Tony Awards deliver a theme of acceptance, while De Niro drops an f-bomb on Trump

The American, grown-up musical The Band’s Visit outmuscled the acclaimed and sprawling British import Harry Potter and the Cursed Child for the most Tony Awards on Sunday, capturing 10 statuettes, including best musical, on a night where the theme of acceptance flowed through the telecast.

Deemed less acceptable by TV censors, however, were Robert De Niro’s comments onstage, when he twice exhorted “f*** Trump”. The expletives were bleeped out of the telecast, but were plain to see for lip-reading viewers.

“In The Band’s Visit, music gives people hope and makes borders disappear,” producer Orin Wolf said upon accepting the best new musical crown, saying it offers a message of unity in a world that “more and more seems bent on amplifying our differences.”

Tony Shalhoub, the Monk star who won as best leading man in a musical for his work on The Band’s Visit, connected the win to his father’s 1920 immigration from Lebanon to New York’s Ellis Island at age 8. “Tonight, I celebrate him and all of those in his family who journeyed before him and with him and after him,” he said.

The Band’s Visit also won statuettes for best direction, orchestration, sound design, best book and score, lighting and featured actor Ari’el Stachel, who gave a heartfelt speech about his past.

“For so many years of my life I pretended I was not a Middle Eastern person,” he said, addressing his parents in the audience. He thanked the creators of the show “for being courageous for telling a small story about Arabs and Israelis getting along at a time that we need that more than ever.”

The show’s director, David Cromer, said the musical is also about loneliness and despair, and asked everyone to reach out to anyone for whom “despair is overwhelming.”

A British revival of Angels in America, Tony Kushner’s monumental, two-part drama about Aids, life and love during the 1980s, grabbed three big awards, including best play revival and acting trophies for Andrew Garfield and Nathan Lane.

Kushner took the stage and pointed out there were 21 weeks until the midterm elections in the United States: “Twenty-one weeks to save our democracy, to heal our country and to heal our planet.”

Garfield won his first Tony, for best leading actor in a play, and dedicated the win to the LGBTQ community, who he said fought and died for the right to love. He said the play is a rejection of bigotry, shame and oppression.

“(Let’s) just bake a cake for everyone who wants a cake to be baked,” he said, to rousing applause. Lane, who won for best featured actor in a play, said “Angels” still speaks to society in the midst of “political insanity.”

In one of the ceremony’s most mesmerising moments, Melody Herzfeld, the heroic drama teacher who nurtured many of the young people demanding change following the February school shooting in Parkland, Florida, was honoured from the Tony Award stage.

Herzfeld, the one-woman drama department at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, was cheered by the crowd at Radio City Music Hall. Herzfeld saved 65 lives by barricading students into a small classroom closet on Valentine’s Day when police say a former student went on a school rampage, killing 17 people.

She then later encouraged many of her pupils to lead the nationwide movement for gun reform. Members of Herzfeld’s drama department took to the Tony stage to serenade her with Seasons of Love from the musical Rent.

In other wins, 82-year-old Glenda Jackson added to her impressive resume with a Tony Award for best actress in a play for her work in a revival of Edward Albee’s Three Tall Women. That show also yielded the featured actress win to Rosanne star Laurie Metcalf.

Billy Joel gave his friend Bruce Springsteen a special Tony Award. “This is deeply appreciated, and thanks for making me feel so welcome on your block,” The Boss said. Later, Springsteen performed “My Hometown” on the piano from his sold-out one-man show, “Springsteen on Broadway.”

De Niro, who took the stage to introduce Springsteen’s performance, started off with an expletive directed at President Donald Trump, which garnered him a sustained standing ovation from the crowd. “I’m gonna say one thing: f*** Trump!” he exclaimed. “It’s no longer down with Trump, it’s f*** Trump!”

Co-hosts Josh Groban and Sara Bareilles, talented and likeable if not terribly thrilling, made somewhat subdued hosts, opening the show with a self-parodying duet on piano for all the losers out there – including them. “Let’s not forget that 90 per cent of us leave empty-handed tonight. So this is for the people who lose,” they sang.

Two of the shows going into the night with most nominations – Tina Fey’s Mean Girls and SpongeBob SquarePants, with 12 nods each – found the night tough. Mean Girls won nothing and SpongeBob SquarePants got only one for best set design.