Darren Criss is now a Tony winner.
Criss won his first Tony Award on Sunday night for best actor in a leading role in a musical for Maybe Happy Ending, which is an original musical. He thanked his co-star in his acceptance speech.
“Helen J. Shen, I’m so proud of you and your Broadway debut for the books. This is where you belong,” he said before thanking the rest of the show’s crew and his fellow teachers. The show also won best musical.
Criss continued, “Also my wife Mia, who took a massive swing on allowing me to do this and to allow this crazy upheaval in our life, to make this logistically possible and for bearing the brunt of raising two tiny friends under three so that I could raise a singing robot at the Belasco Theater eight times a week. Mia, you are the very pedestal that upholds the shiny spinny bit in our lives and your love and your support for me and our beautiful children combined with the miracle of working on something as magical as may be happy ending has been and will always be award enough.”
Other nominees in his category included Andrew Durand (Dead Outlaw), Tom Francis (Sunset Blvd.), Jonathan Groff (Just in Time), James Monroe Iglehart (A Wonderful World: The Louis Armstrong Musical) and Jeremy Jordan (Floyd Collins).
Criss recently was featured in THR‘s Broadway roundtable where he spoke about his relationship to the show. “Because I’ve done shows like Little Shop [of Horrors, Off Broadway] and Hedwig [and the Angry Inch, on Broadway] where people know the material, that can also be an obstacle and something that you have to overcome, for better or for worse. For me, I’ve never been a part of anything where audience has been completely unencumbered by expectation or experience. That in itself is an obstacle, because now I have to try and convince them that this is something somewhat worthwhile, but it is amazing to feel that the gasp of, ‘What is going on?!,’” he said. “But in short, this came to me in 2018, and it was just a matter of being available — the pandemic and then a strike and so many things that happened until finally the stars aligned in a way that I’m so grateful for.”
Maybe Happy Ending is currently playing at the Belasco Theatre.