71st Tony Awards

Shows that opened on Broadway during the 2016–2017 season before April 27, 2017, were eligible for consideration.^[8]

Notes

• Though the revival of Sunday in the Park with George would be technically eligible for the year's Tony Awards season, its producers elected to withdraw the show in advance from Tony consideration.^[9]

The 2017 Tony Honors for Excellence were awarded to general managers Nina Lannan and Alan Wasser.^[18] Actor James Earl Jones received the season's Special Tony Award for Lifetime Achievement.^[19] The 2017 Isabelle Stevenson Award was awarded to Baayork Lee, "for her commitment to future generations of artists through her work with the National Asian Artists Project and theatre education programs around the world."^[20] A special Tony Award for Sound Design ^[21] was awarded to Gareth Fry and Pete Malkin for The Encounter, following the removal of the competitive sound design awards in 2014. The season's Excellence in Theatre Education Award was awarded to drama teacher Rachel Harry of Hood River Valley High School in Hood River, OR.^[22][23]

Sources: Playbill;^[24] The New York Times^[25]

∞ This marks Greenwood's 21st Tony Award nomination and first competitive win.

‡ The award is presented to the producer(s) of the musical or play.^[26]

The show received a mixed reception from media publications. On Metacritic, the ceremony has a weighted average score of 53 out of 100, based on 6 reviews, indicating "mixed or average reviews".^[27] The Hollywood Reporter columnist David Rooney remarked, "Spacey is a brilliant actor, but warmth and humility are perhaps not his strongest suits. So opening on the defensive, with a messy mashup of songs from current-season musicals that he repurposed to head off any eventual criticism of his hosting performance, started the show on a strained note."^[28] The New York Times theatre critic Neil Genzlinger commented, "Sunday night's broadcast of Broadway's annual celebration of itself had trouble figuring out what to do with Kevin Spacey, the evening's host, making use of him in ways that ranged from torturous (the opening number) to tolerable (he does pretty good Johnny Carson and Bill Clinton impressions). It fared far better when it was about the work being honored and the people who did it."^[29] Cynthia Littleton from Variety wrote, "The biggest shortcoming was host Kevin Spacey, who just didn't deliver the same kind of engaging effort as his recent predecessors. The contrast was especially sharp against last year's emcee."^[30]

The Guardian columnist Alexis Soloski wrote, "The House of Cards actor offered outdated Johnny Carson impressions, a Bobby Darin number and a misfiring gag about Hillary Clinton's emails on a night of occasional shock and unforgivable schtick."^[31] IndieWire theatre critic Charles Isherwood commented, "Full of allusions to previous hosts (Neil Patrick Harris, James Corden, Hugh Jackman), it seemed to drag on forever — and was not particularly enlivened by guest appearances by Stephen Colbert and Whoopi Goldberg. Perhaps funny to those in the know, it could only have been mystifying to a wider audience."^[32] In addition, television critic Robert Lloyd of the Los Angeles Times remarked, "Kevin Spacey was the somewhat surprising — though certainly not unqualified — host of the 71st running of the Broadway theater-honoring Tony Awards, broadcast Sunday night from New York's Radio City Music Hall."^[33]

Broadway actors Justin Guarini, Kevin Smith Kirkwood, Okieriete Onaodowan, David Abeles, and Chuck Cooper performed Boyz II Men's "It's So Hard to Say Goodbye to Yesterday" as images of theatre personalities who died in the past year were shown in the following order.^[37]

• Drama Desk Awards
• 2017 Laurence Olivier Awards – equivalent awards for West End theatre productions
• Obie Award
• New York Drama Critics' Circle
• Theatre World Award
• Lucille Lortel Awards