'Billy Elliot' dances away with Tonys

The production's Stephen Daldry beat out Diane Paulus, incoming artistic director of Cambridge's American Repertory Theater, in the directing category, but Paulus's "Hair" for New York's Public Theater took the prize for best revival of a musical. Paulus and the 32-member "tribe" of the hirsute hit joined the Public's Oskar Eustis (formerly of Providence's Trinity Repertory Company) onstage to accept the award.

Among straight plays, "God of Carnage" took three key awards: best play, best direction (Matthew Warchus), and best performance by a lead actress, Marcia Gay Harden.

"I tell my kids every day that bad behavior and tantrums and tears will get them nowhere," said Harden, then brandished the trophy she won for her role as one of four suburban parents behaving very, very badly. "I don't quite know how to explain this."

But her castmates Jeff Daniels and James Gandolfini, perhaps canceling each other out, lost the lead actor prize to Geoffrey Rush for "Exit the King." For best revival of a play, "The Norman Conquests," also directed by Warchus, beat "Joe Turner's Come and Gone," "Mary Stuart," and "Waiting for Godot."

"Billy Elliot" generated early excitement in the craft awards, when its orchestrations shared a prize with those for "Next to Normal" - which then proceeded to upset Sir Elton John, again for "Billy," in the best original score category. That was one of the few surprises of the evening, which also saw favorite Karen Olivo win as best featured actress, musical, for "West Side Story" and Alice Ripley for best lead actress, musical, in "Next to Normal."

After a crowded, busy, high-energy opening assemblage of musical numbers, host Neil Patrick Harris began the proceedings at New York's Radio City Music Hall with a self-deprecating joke: "I was told that that was the biggest and most expensive number in the history of the Tony Awards," he said, "and that is why I'm your host tonight. I'm in TV."

The "How I Met Your Mother" actor acquitted himself with low-key aplomb, though he hardly dazzled - until the closing moments of the show. Having skipped an opening number a la Hugh Jackman's last year, Harris uncorked an amusing bit as the credits rolled, to a familiar tune from "West Side Story."

"Tonight, tonight, the Tonys were tonight, and Elton's 'Billy' was all the rage," Harris sang. "What class! What drive! Now Angela won five - and she hooked up with Poison backstage."

Indeed, Angela Lansbury did take home her fifth Tony, for her featured role in "Blithe Spirit." But the only real Poison news concerned lead singer Bret Michaels's head: He hit it on a piece of scenery during the opening number. Though the extent of the injury was not immediately known, he did not break his nose as was reported at first.

Strapless gowns, mostly black or at least very dark - except for Lansbury's dazzling white pantsuit - dominated the women's fashions; "God of Carnage" playwright Yasmina Reza displayed her French accent with some fabulous red heels. But the Brits who dominated many categories, thanks to "Billy Elliot," may have contributed to the generally subdued fashion sense of the evening.

Then again, the "Hair" tribe was anything but subdued - either sartorially or choreographically. The tribe danced in the aisles, pulling Paulus, Eustis, and others along. Presenter Anne Hathaway, seated in the front row, was a particular target of their affection - but the winner for audience interaction had to be "Rock of Ages," whose cheesy emcee got in Liza Minnelli's face to call her "you nasty little Tony-nominated freak machine."

That didn't seem to faze Liza with a Z, who thanked her parents in accepting the award for special theatrical event, "Liza's at the Palace," in a throaty baritone that rivaled fellow presenter Harvey Fierstein's.

She wasn't the only winner to toast her mom. So did Reza, whose mother "overcame her fear of flying to be with us here tonight"; Roger Robinson (best featured actor in a play, "Joe Turner"), whose 98-year-old mother raised seven kids on her own; and even lifetime achievement award winner Jerry Herman, who reminisced about being born in a nearby hospital - and his mother's conviction that her view of the Winter Garden marquee from the maternity ward boded great things for his future.

Mother always knows best.