Brandon Uranowitz Reflects on His Tony Win

Leigh Nordstrom
·4 min read

It’s the day after the Tony Awards and despite not getting home until 4:15 a.m., Brandon Uranowtiz is in high spirits. Winning a Tony will do that: the previous evening, Uranowitz took home the award for featured actor in a play for his work in “Leopoldstadt,” which was also awarded best play.

He’s spent the day fielding phone calls, texts and FaceTimes, and just generally trying to soak it all in.

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“I mean, I fully blacked out,” he recalls of the moment his name was called. “You want to be able to soak it in and take in the moment and be really present, but at the same time, you also know that you have less than 90 seconds to take it all in. And that sort of time limit can be terrifying and scary and harrowing. So for me, it was about just getting up there and saying the things that I really felt like I needed and wanted to say and getting it all out and not looking like a lunatic.

“But it’s sort of this very surreal, crazy thing, where this thing that you’ve dreamed about since you were a baby, a child, is happening. And it just happens in an instant. And it’s just like, your whole life’s work sort of flashes before your eyes.”

It was his fourth time at the Tonys, and while standing up onstage it struck him just how many theater friends he had in the audience smiling back up at him.

“I remember feeling such an outsider the first time I was nominated. And then being there yesterday and standing on stage and looking out in the audience and just seeing so many friends of mine beaming was this beautifully calming thing that happened,” Uranowitz says. “And that’s sort of what it’s about for me. I’ve always just wanted to be part of this community of people. And so that was a really beautiful, lovely reminder of that.”

The night may have ended in bliss but earlier in the night he was incredibly stressed out over what to wear, having two equally captivating looks at his disposal.

“I kind of wanted to wear both, but I don’t know, it just sort of came down to what felt most appropriate for the evening,” he says of getting ready earlier in the day at the Times Square Edition Hotel. “When I talked to Brian [Meller], the stylist who I’m obsessed with, I told him that I really wanted something really clean and elevated, because the last time I went to the Tony’s, I wore this gorgeous Haider Ackermann suit that I was also obsessed with. The uniqueness of it was in the print, and I wanted to do something unique and bold and make a statement, but [this time] I wanted it more to be in the shape and the cut than in the print.“

Meller pulled both a Peter Do look with an oversize blazer and a pleated skirt over pants, as well as a double-breasted Alexander McQueen tuxedo jacket with flared pants. He was so torn between the two that he ended up leaving later than planned and got stuck in bad traffic en route to the theater.

“I was thinking about what it would feel like to look back on this night and look at pictures and look and feel like I represented myself and the show. I feel like there’s a responsibility to represent the show also in an appropriate and meaningful way. And there was something a little simpler about the McQueen,” Uranowitz says. It was all black with a chiffon pussy bow top underneath, “and it felt clean and it felt appropriate, and it felt like it honored the show in a way that just felt right.”

Highlights from the night include getting to sit behind Corey Hawkins, whose performance Uranowitz loved in “Topdog/Underdog,” as well as chat with Audra McDonald, someone he both “worships the ground she walks on” and considers “a friend and I adore her.”

“I mean, it was just a nice night to celebrate. I feel like, especially after the pandemic, we still don’t really know where we’re heading or what this industry will look like. We’re still sort of in the thick of it and in our recovery period, but this was such an astounding season of theater that I don’t think any of us expected to have,” Uranowitz says. “And so I think we were all just really grateful to be in a room together, celebrating the fact that we all made some pretty incredible theater in really tough times.”

Launch Gallery: Brandon Uranowitz Gets Ready for His Tonys Win in Alexander McQueen

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