On Sunday night, and for the first time ever, the Tony Award for Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role in a Play was presented to an actor who is not a man. Cole Escola, the 38-year-old star of the hit Broadway comedy Oh, Mary!, took home the award, becoming the first non-binary performer to win in the category at the Tonys (long considered theatre’s equivalent of the Oscars).
While there’s reason to celebrate the win – as a breaking of boundaries and a spotlighting of LGBT+ talent – the night raised questions about the very sustainability of the Tony Awards format, which divides its performance categories by gender. It’s a practice that’s more or less ubiquitous: nearly all the major film award bodies do it, including the Oscars, as well as the TV ones, such as the Emmys. But it’s one that seems increasingly incompatible with our modern understanding of gender. It was glaring to see Escola, wearing a dress and long auburn wig (an homage to Broadway legend Bernadette Peters) – in other words, presenting themself as very visibly not a cisgender man – win in a category otherwise populated by men (among them George Clooney and Daniel Dae Kim). But these are the options, if you’re a non-binary actor in show business: compete in a gender field to which you don’t belong, or don’t compete at all.
