Inside the Tony Awards after-parties: Angelina Jolie serves McDonald’s, Billy Porter protests
“No more Carlyle! No more Carlyle!” shouted Billy Porter.
It’s not so often you witness a protest inside the ritzy Carlyle Hotel, but the “Kinky Boots” actor was furious.
“Everybody leave right the f–k now!” he said.
The “Pose” star and a slew of others — including yours truly, Corey Cott (“The Heart of Rock and Roll”) and Casey Cott (“Riverdale”) — were getting kicked out of a suite on the 31st floor, where we were having a Tony Awards after-after-after party at 3 a.m. Monday morning, due to noise complaints.
“I don’t know who you are,” Porter said to two security guards who calmly demanded that only four people remain in the room that was occupied by more than 20. “But it’s wrong!”
Especially wrong was that the fridge was stocked with a case of Piper-Heidsieck Rare Champagne, which goes for $200 a bottle. Those poor bubbles went uncorked!
But the mantra on Broadway is “the show must go on.” Everybody discreetly scurried off onto the elevator and into other rooms instead.
Before that oh-so-dramatic fracas, Rick Miramontez’s famed Carlyle kegger was at full blast into the wee hours of the morning on the Upper East Side.
Best Actress in a Play winner Sarah Paulson (“Appropriate”) hit the dance floor, and Jonathan Groff, who won Best Actor in a Musical, sang “Old Friends” from his show “Merrily We Roll Along” at the piano in Bemelmans Bar with Billy Stritch and Jim Caruso.
Featured Actor winner Daniel Radcliffe was also with Groff in Bemelmans, beaming.
Eddie Redmayne, Nicole Scherzinger, Billy Eichner, Leslie Odom Jr., Jim Parsons and Ariana DeBose crammed in with the tuxedoed and frock’ed masses.
And talented “Tommy” star Ali Louis Bourzgui told me he was nervous to perform “Pinball Wizard” on the telecast earlier in the night in front of so many theater luminaries — alongside The Who’s Pete Townshend, no less. But Tommy took a breath, and had a great time.
Across town, the team from “The Outsiders,” which won the Tony for Best Musical in a nail-biter, started their victory tour with a bash at Rosa Mexicano near Lincoln Center, where producer Angelina Jolie held court amid the guacamole.
“She was kickin’ it!” an excited cast member told me.
More exclusive — and ragtag — was later, when the Oscar winner whisked the actors and creatives downtown to her Soho shop Atelier Jolie, handed out coffees and ordered everybody McDonald’s at 4 a.m.
“It was hilarious,” the actor said.
There was no war between the Greasers and Socs last night. They partied till 6 a.m.
Besides the Carlyle, the second-biggest soiree — even though they lost — was thrown by Alicia Keys for her musical “Hell’s Kitchen.”
At the massive new art exhibit/museum/party venue Mercer Labs in Tribeca, Keys was joined by Liev Schreiber, Lupita Nyong’o, Taraji P. Henson, Amber Ruffin and Cynthia Erivo. Best Actress in a Musical winner Maleah Joi Moon and Featured Actress champ Kecia Lewis were there, too.
Co-founder Michael Cayre told me that Keys wanted something “special” and bespoke for her fete, and chose the Roy Nachum-designed funhouse.
“Special” translates to, I kid you not, an area where a futuristic robot drew her lyrics in the sand and a mind-bending mirror room where “Empire State of Mind” was blared on a loop. Thirteen of Mercer’s 15 rotating exhibits were open to revelers and, with so much booze flowing, miraculously came out unscathed.
The word was that Keys would give an impromptu performance, but the “Girl on Fire” singer ultimately didn’t.
Nevertheless, on Tonys night New York City was definitely a concrete jungle that dreams are made of.
Well, for some people.
