'Hamilton' Sweeps Up Awards At Tonys

'Hamilton', the hip-hop stage biography of Alexander Hamilton, captured nine Tony Awards by the mid-point of the telecast on Sunday but will not break the record for the most Tonys.

Hamilton went into the night with 16 nominations and had won best score, best book, direction, orchestration, choreography, and best featured actor and actress statuettes for Renee Elise Goldsberry and Daveed Diggs.

It earlier won awards for costume and lighting but lost scenic design to She Loves Me, meaning Hamilton will not be able to break the 12-statuette record haul by The Producers.

Eclipsed won for best costume for a play, and The Humans won for best set design of a play. Best set design for a musical went to She Loves Me, and best lighting for a play went to Long Day's Journey Into Night.

Jessica Lange has won her first Tony for playing a drug-addled mother in the Broadway revival of the monumental Long Day's Journey Into Night.

The two-time Academy Award winner acknowledged the "sad" day.

Dutch visionary Ivo Van Hove won his first Tony Award for directing an imaginative revival of Arthur Miller's A View from the Bridge. Under his helm, the barefoot cast warily circled one another under bright lights in a set that resembled a boxing ring.

'fan-boy' vibe

Corden brought his endearing fan-boy vibe to the opening number in which he performed a head-spinning medley of tunes from famous Broadway musicals, including donning a mask for The Phantom of the Opera, a leather jacket for Grease, and a curly red wig for Annie. He later encouraged others in the audience to pick songs and join him in a bit of karaoke during commercial breaks including one with Hayes and Jake Gyllenhaal.

The host of The Late Late Show had some quips for the theater-loving audience:

"This is like the Super Bowl for people who don't know what the Super Bowl is "he said at one point. At another: "Think of tonight as the Oscars, but with diversity," and made a dig at Donald Trump for wanting to build a wall around the theatre. He later flirted with Oprah Winfrey.

frequent target

Donald Trump was a frequent target. Nathan Lane made a crack about Trump University and Emilio Estefan insisted that his all-Latin cast for On Your Feet! were all in America legally.

Thomas Kail won the Tony for directing Hamilton. He thanked Miranda, a frequent collaborator, and celebrated the diversity of Broadway this season. "Let's continue to tell stories," he said.

Jayne Houdyshell, a mainstay of the New York stage, won her first Tony Award at 62 for playing a gossipy, gently needling mom in The Humans.

Her stage husband, Reed Birney, won best featured actor in a play. An actor for almost 42 years, he admitted that 35 of them were "pretty bad".

He thanked the theatre

community for keeping him going.