Broadway's Hamilton is racking up on 2016 Tony Awards for both its performers and crew as Sunday night's awards show continues. The first acting win for the musical was Renee Elise Goldsberry, winner of the trophy for Best Performance By an Actress in a Featured Role in a Musical. Next, Hamilton's Daveed Diggs won the 2016 Tony Award for Best Performance By an Actor In A Featured Role in a Musical for his two standout appearances in Lin-Manuel Miranda's smash hit. Diggs pulls double-duty in Hamilton, playing both Thomas Jefferson and Marquis de Lafayette. This is Diggs' first Tony nomination and his first win.
The talented actor accepted his award with an adorable story about his parents encouraging his interest in the arts — even if it mean doing a gymnastics routine in rainbow tights for a school show. "I want to do a gymnastics routine with my dad," Diggs explained in his acceptance speech, before using the adorable anecdote to speak about how much his parents' support meant to him.
Diggs has some of the most memorable and impressive lyrical turns in Hamilton. In the first half of the show, he plays Lafayette, a French solider who shows off some incredible rapping skills. Just try singing along to them — he is spitting fire in "Guns and Ships." In the show's second half, Diggs comes out as soon-to-be Secretary of State and President Jefferson, an unabashed Francophile who faces off with the musical's protagonist Alexander Hamilton, played by composer and writer Lin-Manuel Miranda. Give "What'd I Miss" a listen for a taste of Diggs' pipes as Jefferson.
Though this is Diggs' first Tony win, with talent like that, I'm sure it won't be his last.
