“It’s All the things”: Alex Newell on Sporting Christian Siriano to Win on the 2023 Tony Awards

Nominated for finest featured actor in a musical for the hit musical Shucked—the Broadway present in regards to the rescue of a Midwestern city’s dying corn crop—the newly minted Tony winner had made historical past with Some Like It Sizzling’s J. Harrison Ghee (who additionally received their first Tony on Sunday night time), as the primary nonbinary-identifying actors to be nominated for Tony Awards.
“Broadway is such a small microcosm, after which being Black on Broadway within the Broadway neighborhood is a fair smaller microcosm,” the actor advised Self-importance Truthful in an interview forward of Sunday’s Tony Awards ceremony. “So all of us actually do know one another, or we all know of one another and we simply haven’t met but or we haven’t labored collectively but. So it’s good that J. and I—we’re bosom buddies, two aunties, simply operating across the season collectively.”
So when it got here time to rejoice the season and put together for his or her history-making second, the actor—who made their Broadway debut in 2017’s As soon as on This Island—needed a statement-making ensemble match for a winner. And after having attended the 2023 Met Gala in a customized Christian Siriano creation, Newell had the designer on pace dial.
“Proper after the Met, was like, ‘I wish to costume you for the Tonys. I used to be like, ‘Nice. Let’s go,’” the previous Glee star explains. “He acquired it, I feel, as a result of once I mentioned, ‘I wish to present physique. I wish to be plus-sized and nonetheless present form,’ he took that into consideration when making and designing this robe.”
Newell and Siriano developed a relationship after working collectively for the Met Gala, one other occasion the place they selected a form-fitting costume as an alternative of a “dramatic ball robe.”
“After I acquired the invite to the Met, I attempted on two attire. One beautiful, dramatic ball robe. Then I attempted on this very, very form-fitting, attractive outfit that I truly ended up carrying to the Met Gala as a result of I needed to indicate that you might be plus-size and nonetheless have a physique and a form,” Newell explains. “I used to be very proud of that expression, as a result of on this time of doing Shucked and having this girl onstage who’s simply plus-size and never the butt of the joke, who exudes intercourse, and it’s not like, Oh, it’s hokey. I like that. I like to precise that even in my physique, intercourse nonetheless is there.”
They proceed, “I’ve all the time heard that you simply’re both fats and jolly or fats and a bitch, however why can’t you simply be fats and attractive?”
So when it was time to collaborate on one other customized creation for the Tony Awards, Newell took the identical strategy, requesting a form-fitting glittering gold robe with a Greek, goddess-like twist.
“It’s beautiful—a really form-fitting, draped, metallic gold fantasia,” they are saying of the look, earlier than explaining that they needed to “seem like a statue,” particularly referencing the long-lasting Columbia Photos “torch girl” brand.
“I really feel like I seem like the Columbia statue. You understand, from the start of the film?” the Tony winner says, including that that they had one other Hollywood inspiration for the whimsical metallic look. “I mentioned, I cherished Diahann Carroll. She was a stage, TV, and display screen star, so I wish to pay a bit homage to her too.”
Having all the time been acquainted with Siriano’s design fashion and technique, the Broadway star says they weren’t shocked when the Venture Runway mentor pulled each of their show-stopping red-carpet appears to be like collectively in lower than 72 hours.
And like their ensemble for trend’s largest night time, there’s nothing Newell doesn’t love about their glowing gold robe second.
“I feel it’s so me, in a approach. It has the whole lot that I’ve ever needed. It has the off-the-shoulder. It has the very formed-fitted corset bodice. It has a really lengthy, dramatic practice. It’s the whole lot,” they are saying. “It has drama. It has a softness to it with a draped neckline that has a pinch of a sweetheart lower to it, not even the most important one, however it’s so small that you simply solely discover should you’re it, so as to add the element to make it softer. It’s all of these issues. I feel that the costume is so my character proper now.”
Along with gold, Newell additionally explains their present obsession with all issues purple, which is the colour of their wig in Shucked. So it solely made sense to carry the eye-catching look along with a voluminous purple hair fashion. Not solely as a praise to the costume, however as an homage to Newell’s stage character.
“I’ve been obsessive about the colour purple, a lot in order that my wig in my present is purple. So everybody has been yelling at me that if I don’t do the purple in my private life…so I mentioned, ‘Let me simply go forward and do purple for the Tonys,’” the previous Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist star says, including that they knew the purple would go “completely” with their gold aesthetic.
And whereas their most important inspiration for the awards ensemble was the essence of Outdated Hollywood, with the lengthy hair and the goddess-style robe, a great pal of Newell’s reminded them of a childhood movie reference that their Tonys look resembled.
“My finest pal, on the becoming, was like, ‘Oh, you seem like one of many muses from Hercules proper now.’ I used to be like, ‘That’s the smartest thing anybody might ever say to me, so thanks.’ I’ve all the time mentioned that I used to be within the cartoon model of Hercules—the muse with the longest hair,” the actor and singer says. “In order that’s what I’m actually giving on the Tonys. However purple.”
And till the stage adaptation of Hercules makes its technique to Broadway (during which Newell would naturally play one of many 5 muses), you’ll find the actor on a corn-filled stage, proudly performing with the remainder of the forged of nine-time Tony-nominated Shucked.
“As a forged and a crew, contained in the constructing, eight exhibits every week, we’ve constructed a extremely good neighborhood. We’ve constructed a extremely good, robust neighborhood of belief and love and supportiveness,” Newell says of their Shucked stage household. “It’s a ravishing factor to have.”