Billy Elliot dances to Tonys joy
Billy Elliot has danced away with 10 Tony Awards, including the title for best musical.
The story of a schoolboy in a northern mining town who dreams of dancing was the ceremony's big winner, including statuettes for best musical and a unique best actor prize for the three young performers who share the title character - David Alvarez, Trent Kowalik and Kiril Kulish.
In a good night for Broadway's British contingent, Angela Lansbury won the award for best performance by a featured actress in a play - becoming only the second actress in history to win five Tonys.
Billy Elliot collected eight other awards, including director of a musical, book of a musical and choreography, but its composer Sir Elton John was upset for best score. That award was taken by Next to Normal - which seemed to stun its composer Tom Kitt and lyricist Brian Yorkey. Alice Ripley, who portrays battling mental illness in Next to Normal, received the actress musical prize.
God of Carnage, Yasmina Reza's savage comedy of manners about two liberal, middle-class couples whose children get into a fight, was named best play and picked up two other major awards, one for its director, Matthew Warchus, and the other for actress Marcia Gay Harden.
The Norman Conquests, Alan Ayckbourn's trilogy, received the revival-play prize, while Hair, the iconic 1960s rock extravaganza roared to a win in the musical-revival category.
The director/musical award went to Stephen Daldry of Billy Elliot.
"I have been blessed in my life to spend the majority of last 10 years of my life working on the story of Billy Elliot,' said Daldry, who called it "a long, extraordinary journey" .
He said the award belonged to everyone connected to the show and especially to "three great gifts of Broadway, our three little Billys."
Geoffrey Rush's extravagant portrait of a dying monarch in Exit the King took the top actor prize. "I want to thank Manhattan audiences for proving that French existential absurdist tragicomedy rocks," Rush said.
