“Child,” Ariana DeBose confided, “you’re at all times on.”
DeBose, an Oscar winner and a longtime Broadway phenom, was talking of herself, within the second individual, final Saturday night. Wearing a beige ribbed tank, athletic shorts and chunky heeled boots, she was nonetheless glistening from a rehearsal for Sunday’s Tony Awards broadcast. “On” is an understatement: This will likely be her third time internet hosting the ceremony, and her first time producing and choreographing.
“Why I did that, I’ll by no means know,” she stated. “Pricey lord, the Tonys is only one big studying expertise. It’s a must to be humble.”
Humble. And really busy. DeBose is 33 however nonetheless very a lot a theater child. Her speech was quick, excitable, and when not vaping from a sizzling pink pen, she had an inclination to achieve out to pat my arm or leg, an intimate type of emphasis. Quickly, she would take herself out for a hurried plate of pasta earlier than racing to a night present. For the previous two weeks, DeBose has been on a mission, nevertheless implausible, to see all the nominated performs and musicals.
Till the top of Might, DeBose had been in Winnipeg, Manitoba, taking pictures an motion movie, “With Love.” She arrived in New York Metropolis the Saturday earlier than Memorial Day and noticed her first present that Sunday. On the day we spoke, every week earlier than the printed, she had simply three exhibits remaining. (One, “Water for Elephants,” she would see that night time.) And this was along with arduous rehearsal days.
“These are reverse processes,” she stated of internet hosting and spectating. “They’re very completely different disciplines, however you may’t host in case you don’t know who’s concerned. So to me, it’s a requirement.”
That schedule appeared grueling. DeBose selected a unique phrase: inspiring. “I’m not exhausted by Broadway,” she stated, flashing her 100-watt smile. “I’m like, ‘Y’all are doing it. Y’all are doing the strikes.’”
This Broadway season struck her as unusually different. Nonetheless she acknowledged overarching themes. Many exhibits have been in regards to the indomitability of the human spirit. “Which is so lovely,” she stated. “That’s the perform of artwork, a reminder that there’s hope on the planet.” Others requested the viewers to think about tough matters — prejudice, aggression, acceptance. As a dancer, she additionally had enthusiastic phrases for a number of the choreography, particularly the combat scene in “The Outsiders.” She described Justin Peck’s “Illinoise” as “a brand new technology’s ‘Movin’ Out,’ or the unique Bob Fosse’s ‘Dancin’.”
Sometimes she has felt jealous, although principally in a joyful approach, dreaming of what it may need been prefer to function on this season’s “Cabaret” revival or to have performed Gussie in “Merrily We Roll Alongside.” And she or he has admired this season’s mixture of Hollywood names and newly minted expertise. “For each ‘Mom Play,’ there’s a ‘Hell’s Kitchen,’” she stated, referring to star turns from the veteran performer Jessica Lange (“Mom Play”) and the Broadway newcomer Maleah Joi Moon (“Hell’s Kitchen”).
When the Tonys approached her about internet hosting its 2022 present, she was contemporary off an Oscar win and wasn’t a family title. (She is extra recognizable now, although in toilet strains at exhibits, she mostly hears: “Has anybody ever instructed you that you just look identical to Ariana DeBose?”) She figures that the producers have been interested in her story, an ensemble member made good. “Past that, I don’t know what they have been smoking,” she stated.
On the opposite facet of the pandemic, her exuberance was almost definitely a draw, as was her sunniness. “I’ve a private rule of constructive vibes solely,” she stated. For the previous two broadcasts, she has delivered celebration with out snark, even within the midst of final 12 months’s writers’ strike, when she needed to work and not using a script.
However underlying this exuberance is what she described as “crippling nervousness,” as a result of she desires to be the perfect host potential and since she feels that as a queer girl of colour, she doesn’t have a lot margin for error.
“If I get it mistaken, then it may reduce any individual else’s probabilities,” she stated. “If I’m going on the market and blow it, I don’t know after they’re going to rent a girl of colour or a queer individual, simply because I bought it mistaken as soon as.”
DeBose has introduced that this will likely be her final 12 months as Tonys host, at the least for some time, largely as a result of she hopes to return to Broadway. When she left, she was an ingénue, now she’s in her main period. And she or he desires to steer a present that’s “humane and doable, as a result of I’ve labored in productions that aren’t,” she stated. “Once I come again, I simply wish to try to get it proper.”
Within the meantime, she had these final exhibits to see and one big awards ceremony to organize for. There could be dazzling outfits, a showstopping opener and a calming bottle of rosé as soon as she had pulled all of it off. Which she would.
“I’m an entertainer,” she stated. “That is about pleasure and delight and celebration. These have been my mandates. And that’s what we’re doing.”
