“People, stop texting me!” pleaded Kecia Lewis, with comic exasperation. The veteran Broadway performer had just won her first Tony award in a 40-year career, for the Alicia Keys musical “Hell’s Kitchen,” and was trying to read her acceptance speech off her phone. But she was being distracted by those pesky congratulatory texts.
Lewis soon had the laughing audience in tears, though, describing how in those four decades she had wanted to give up many times — but got enough encouragement from the right people to keep going. Many award winners encourage others to pursue their dreams, but Lewis, in a speech that was one of the night’s best, issued a blunt order: “Don’t. Give. Up!”
