Broadway is back after going dark for nearly 18 months. To celebrate its triumphant return, the Broadway community gathered on Sunday for the Tony Awards for shows that ran before the shutdown of March 2020. The ceremony, hosted by six-time Tony winner and The Good Fight star Audra McDonald, was followed by a special "Broadway's Back" concert that Hamilton's Leslie Odom Jr. hosted. While the night was packed with shout-outs to queer identity, one sweet moment that was a highlight was a duet between Tituss Burgess and Andrew Rannells, who held hands to sing the love song "It Takes Two" from Into the Woods to one another.
The special concert featured production numbers from the nominated musicals, Tina -- The Tina Turner Musical, Jagged Little Pill, and the winner in the best musical category, Moulin Rouge. The famed Winter Garden Theatre was packed with luminaries of the arts, all in masks as part of safety protocols. As part of an ode to great musical duets, Rannells and Burgess regaled the audience with Stephen Sondheim's classic tune sung by the characters of the Baker and the Baker's Wife when they rekindle their love for each other while in the woods. On a night where queer Tony winners Lauren Platten (actor in Jagged Little Pill), Sonya Tayeh (choreographer for Moulin Rouge), and The Inheritance playwright Matthew Lopez, all called out the LGBTQ+ community, the Burgess/Rannells duet was a sweet cake topper. Other moving duets of the night included a teary Kristin Chenoweth and Idina Menzel singing "For Good" from Wicked and McDonald and Brian Stokes Mitchell bringing down the house with "Wheels of a Dream" from Ragtime.
Watch Rannells and Burgess below.