A scene from the Broadway play “Leopoldstadt.” Photo: Joan Marcus

Leopoldstadt and Parade, two plays about Jewish characters whose lives were forever changed by antisemitism, won a combined total of six awards and garnered 12 nominations at the 76th Tony Awards that took place Sunday night in New York City.

Leopoldstadt by Tom Stoppard was awarded best play, best performance by an actor in a featured role for Jewish actor Brandon Uranowitz, best direction of a play for Patrick Marber and best costume design for Brigitte Reiffenstuel. It was also nominated for best scenic design and best lighting design, receiving a total of six Tony nominations.

The drama, which opened in October 2022 and will have its final performance on July 2, is set is Vienna, Austria, and begins in the last days of 1899. It follows one extended Eastern European Jewish family over the course of 50 years, and the love, loss and endurance they experience before and after the Holocaust. Leopoldstadt was the name of the former Jewish ghetto in Vienna.

The play is inspired by Stoppard’s own family history in Eastern Europe. The playwright was born Tomas Straussler in 1937 in Czechoslovakia and his Jewish parents fled the country with him and his brother when the Nazis invaded. All four of Stoppard’s grandparents and three of his mother’s sisters were murdered by the Nazis.

In his acceptance speech, Uranowitz thanked Stoppard “for writing a play about Jewish identity and antisemitism and the false promise of assimilation with the nuances and the complexities that are contradictions that they deserve.” He added that his ancestors, “many of whom did not make it out of Poland, also thank you.”

Parade received the Tony Award for best revival of a play and best direction of a musical for two-time Tony nominee Michael Arden. The play, which was nominated for a total of six awards, opened in March and will run through Aug. 6. It is based on a true story and stars award-winning Jewish actor Ben Platt and Micaela Diamond as real-life Jewish couple Leo and Lucille Frank, newlyweds living in Georgia.

In 1913, Leo is falsely accused and convicted of raping and murdering a 13-year-old girl who worked at the the Atlanta, Georgia, pencil factory that he managed. He was sentenced to death but when Georgia Gov. John M. Slaton discovered flaws in the trial that questioned if Frank was truly innocent and instead targeted because of antisemitism, he commuted Frank’s sentence in 1915 to life in prison. An antisemitic mob, outraged by Slaton’s decision, then broke into the state penitentiary, kidnapped Frank and lynched him. He was 31 years old.

Frank later received a posthumous pardon by the state of Georgia and his conviction has become infamous for being based on false testimony rooted in antisemitism.

“Parade tells the story of a life that was cut short at the hands of the belief that one group of people is more or less valuable than another and that they might be more deserving of justice. This is a belief that is the core of antisemitism, of white supremacy, of homophobia, of transphobia and intolerance of any kind. We must come together,” Arden said in his acceptance speech at the Tony Awards. He then told the audience “we must battle this” and that it is “important” because otherwise, “we are doomed to repeat the horrors of our history.”

The 76th Tony Awards, hosted by Oscar-winning actress Ariana DeBose, honored plays and musicals that opened on Broadway between April 29, 2022, and April 27, 2023.