Tony Awards: Alex Newell, J. Harrison Ghee become first nonbinary winners

NEW YORK — Alex Newell and J. Harrison Ghee made history at the 76th annual Tony Awards on Sunday night, becoming the first nonbinary people to win on Broadway’s biggest night.

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Newell was the first to win, taking best featured actor in a musical for their role in “Shucked,” The New York Times reported.

“Thank you for seeing me Broadway,” Newell, 30, of Lynn, Massachusetts, said while accepting the award at the United Palace Theater in New York City. “I should not be up here as a queer, nonbinary, fat, Black, little baby from Massachusetts. And to anyone that thinks that they can’t do it, I’m going to look you dead in your face that you can do anything you put your mind to.”

Ghee took the best leading actor in a musical award, winning for “Some Like It Hot,” the adaptation of the famous cross-dressing 1959 comedy film that starred Tony Curtis, Jack Lemmon and Marilyn Monroe.

“Thank you for the humanity. Thank you for my incredible company who raised me up every single day,” Ghee, 33, said after accepting the award. “My mother raised me to understand that the gifts God gave me were not about me,” Ghee said Sunday night while accepting their Tony Award. “To use them to be effective in the world. For every trans, nonbinary, gender non-conforming human -- whoever was told they couldn’t be, couldn’t be seen, this is for you. ‘Some Like It Hot’ and that ain’t bad.”

Newell starred as Wade “Unique” Adams on “Glee,” a role they earned after participating in the casting series “The Glee Project,” Rolling Stone reported. Newell was a runner-up.

The Tony Awards, like the Oscars, have only gendered categories for performers. Ghee and Newell agreed to be considered eligible for awards as actors, according to the Times.

Another nonbinary performer this season, Justin David Sullivan of “& Juliet,” decided not to be considered for awards, according to the newspaper.

Two performers who later came out as nonbinary have won Tony Awards as best featured actress in a musical: Sara Ramirez, who won in 2005 for “Spamalot”; and Karen Olivo, who won in 2009 for “West Side Story,” the Times reported.

Toby Marlow, who is nonbinary, won last year’s best score with Lucy Moss for “Six,” according to the newspaper.

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