Knowledgable watchers of the 2025 Tony Awards June 8 may have noticed there were some awards missing from the broadcast version of the ceremony: the design awards, the book and score awards, and notably, Harvey Fierstein's acceptance speech for his 2025 Special Tony Award for Lifetime Achievement. Those awards aired during the Tony Awards: Act One pre-show, so unfortunately, people who just watched the CBS broadcast missed the speech.
Fierstein's speech was a particularly special one, delivered by a legend who already has four Tonys at home, and responsible for some of the most groundbreaking representation of the queer community鈥攆rom Torch Song Trilogy to La Cage aux Folles to Kinky Boots. The Lifetime Achievement Award is his fifth Tony.
Below is Fierstein's acceptance speech that he delivered at Radio City Music Hall. Watch him deliver it in the video above.
Don't make Mommy cry. Oh, thank you so much. You gorgeous people, I have to tell you, since I got that call, something's been on my mind. This has all happened by accident. See, if it had gone to plan, I should now be a retired high school art teacher. But what happened was my freshman year of High School of Art and Design, this kid in my class said that his mother was starting a community theatre in Brooklyn and needed kids to come and make posters. I figured, "Why not?" I don't know if it was the fumes from the magic markers, but I entered the basement of a Unitarian church in Flatbush, Brooklyn, and I found my community.
Here were people, mostly adults, who saw this odd, chubby, recently bar mitzvahed boy (who'd put a towel on his head and lip sync Broadway show tunes into his bedroom mirror) and without hesitation or judgment just welcomed him in. I painted scenery, I ran lights, I pulled curtains. And by the age of 15, I was on the board of directors of The Gallery Players, a theatre that still exists in Brooklyn. From there, I moved to the world of experimental theatre in La MaMa, then Off Broadway. By then, I was writing and acting in my own shows, and I was always, always accepted just as I was. And then suddenly, well, not so suddenly, but you can get the rest of the story from my best-selling New York Times autobiography, I Was Better Last Night, at your favorite bookseller. So suddenly, I found myself on the Broadway with Torch Song Trilogy. It was only then that I was cautioned, "If you want a career, keep your personal life to yourself." My answer was, "Have you seen Torch Song Trilogy?" It was 1982 and not only did I arrive on Broadway, but so did AIDS. This was no time to hide. We needed to go to war, and it was a war that cost us much too dearly. I might never really understand how I survived those years, or the years that led me to be standing on this stage accepting a Lifetime Achievement Award. But what I find most humbling is the thought that somehow my journey means something to you.
There's no way to really thank even a tiny percentage of the people responsible. No one does theatre alone, but I must call out my mother, who dragged us to opera and ballet and Broadway as often as she could afford. And my brother, who's sitting over there, who used my shows as a personality test for his dates: If they freaked out seeing his drag queen brother, they were history.
But I'd like to leave you with this thought, as many of you know, there is nothing quite like bathing in the applause of a curtain call, but when I bow, I bow to the audience with gratitude, knowing that without them, I might as well be lip syncing show tunes in my bedroom mirror. And so I dedicate this award to the people in the dark and offer my most profound thanks to all of you, my community.
Watch Fierstein's post-speech interview with 半岛体育 where he reveals another person he should've called out in his speech: Arthur Laurents.
