Sufjan Stevens Musical Illinoise Wins Best Choreography at 2024 Tony Awards
Justin Peck, June 2024 (Theo Wargo/Getty Images for Tony Awards Productions)
Illinoise, the dance musical by Justin Peck based on Sufjan Stevens’ 2005 album Illinois, has won Best Choreography at tonight’s 2024 Tony Awards. Peck earned the honor over Here Lies Love’s Annie-B Parson, Hell’s Kitchen’s Camille A. Brown, The Outsiders’ Rick Kuperman and Jeff Kuperman, and Water for Elephants’ Jesse Robb and Shana Carroll. Despite heavily featuring Stevens’ music, Illinoise’s win does not extend to Stevens himself.
Illinoise was in the running for Best Musical, too, but lost to The Outsiders. Additionally, Illinoise was nominated for Best Lighting Design of a Musical and Best Orchestrations this year; those awards went to Brian MacDevitt and Hana S. Kim for The Outsiders and Jonathan Tunick for Merrily We Roll Along, respectively. The Illinoise cast—including My Brightest Diamond’s Shara Nova and Tasha—performed a modified version of Stevens’ “The Predatory Wasp of the Palisades Is Out to Get Us!” onstage during the Tony Awards ceremony.
After originally staging 2023 runs at Bard College’s Fisher Center, Park Avenue Armory, and the Chicago Shakespeare Theater, Illinoise premiered on Broadway this past April. Peck directed and choreographed the show, and co-wrote its story with Jackie Sibblies Drury, who won the 2019 Pulitzer Prize in Drama for her play Fairview. He’s been a longtime friend and collaborator of Stevens, with the two working together previously on the ballets Year of the Rabbit, in 2012, Everywhere We Go, in 2014, In the Countenance of Kings, in 2016, The Decalogue, in 2017, and Reflections, in 2019.
Earlier in the evening, former Arcade Fire member Will Butler was in the running for Best Orchestrations and Best Original Score for writing the music and lyrics for Stereophonic. While he didn’t take home either trophy, Stereophonic did go on to win the Tony Award for Best New Play. In total, it racked up a record-breaking 13 nominations.
Hell’s Kitchen, a semi-autobiographical musical about Alicia Keys’ upbringing in Manhattan that features music and lyrics by Keys, was also tied with 13 nominations at the Tony Awards, and the production won two awards. During the cast’s onstage performance tonight, Alicia Keys brought out Jay-Z for “Empire State of Mind.”
The Who’s Tommy was nominated for Best Revival of a Musical, but it lost to Merrily We Roll Along. The cast performed “Pinball Wizard” onstage with some help from Pete Townshend on acoustic guitar. While introducing the segment, Townshend made a joke about wearing a beanie to the awards show and discussed how much it meant to him to bring the musical back to Broadway.
Originally Appeared on Pitchfork
