Sarah Snook wins at the Tony Awards 2025 for solo turn in The Picture of Dorian Gray

The Succession star plays all 26 roles in Kip Williams’s hi-tech adaptation of Wilde’s classic novel.

Sarah Snook poses with the Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role in a Play award for "The Picture of Dorian Gray". Picture: Cindy Ord/Getty Images for Tony Awards Productions

Sarah Snook is the “little Australian girl” who could. On Sunday night at New York City’s Radio City Music Hall, the Adelaide-born actor took out the Tony Award for Best Leading Actress in a Play for her dazzling one-woman performance in The Picture of Dorian Gray.

Snook, 37, plays all 26 characters in Kip Williams’s high-tech adaptation of Oscar Wilde’s 1891 novel, shifting between roles with the help of live cameras and pre-recorded video.

The production first debuted at the Sydney Theatre Company in 2020 with Eryn Jean Norvill in the title role, before transferring to London’s West End with Snook, and now to Broadway, where it has been met with critical acclaim.

Kip Williams attends The 78th Annual Tony Awards. Picture: Michael Loccisano/Getty Images/AFP

Snook’s performance beat out strong competition from Laura Donnelly (The Hills of California), Mia Farrow (The Roommate), LaTanya Richardson Jackson (Purpose), and Sadie Sink (John Proctor Is the Villain).

“This is an intimidating room full of incredibly talented people,” Snook said during her acceptance speech. “Thank you so much for this. It means so much for a little Australian girl to be here on Broadway.”

The production earned six nominations in total, including Best Direction for Williams, who also co-designed the piece’s cinematic language. Technical nods went to Clemence Williams (sound), Nick Schlieper (lighting), Marg Horwell (costumes), and David Bergman (set design).

Costume designer Marg Horwell won the Tony for Best Costume Design of a Play. With Snook playing 26 characters—often switching between them in a matter of seconds—Horwell’s costumes played a crucial role in delineating each role. They were also visually exquisite, pulling from a brilliantly unpredictable mix of references: Victorian-era fashion, Eurythmics frontwoman Annie Lennox, and Puerto Rican rapper Bad Bunny.

On stage in London in The Picture of Dorian Gray. Picture: Marc Brenner

Snook is best known to international audiences as Shiv Roy, the cut-throat daughter of a media dynasty in HBO’s Succession, a role that has already netted her an Emmy and two Golden Globes. She also won an Olivier Award earlier this year for Dorian Gray during its London run.

Speaking to Vogue Australia, Snook described the role as “an immense challenge, but enjoyable.”

A graduate of NIDA, Snook has long been a mainstay of Australian film and television, with several AACTA awards for Sisters of War, Predestination, and last year’s Oscar-nominated animated feature Memoir of a Snail.

Sarah Snook accepts the award for best performance by an actress in a leading role in a play for The Picture of Dorian Gray. Picture: Charles Sykes/Invision/AP

With her Tony win, Snook joins the small but mighty group of Australian actors to conquer the ceremony—alongside the likes of Hugh Jackman (Best Actor in a Musical, The Boy from Oz) and Geoffrey Rush (Best Actor in a Play, Exit the King).

The evening, hosted by Wicked star (and Tony-winner in her own right) Cynthia Erivo, saw Maybe Happy Ending—a show about two discarded robots who forge a friendship in futuristic Korea—take out Best New Musical, the ceremony’s most coveted prize. It was the most decorated show of the evening, collective six Tony Awards — including Best Actor in a Musical for Darren Criss.

Purpose, a Pulitzer-winning drama from Branden Jacobs-Jenkins, won Best Play, while a new production of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Sunset Boulevard won Best Musical Revival. Its star, Nicole Scherzinger—perhaps best known as the frontwoman of the inescapable 2000s pop group The Pussycat Dolls—won Best Actress in a Musical for her role as Norma Desmond.

Cole Escola, creator and star of the hit farce Oh, Mary!, won the Tony for Best Actor in a Play, beating George Clooney. In the play, they portray former First Lady Mary Todd Lincoln, who dreams of becoming a cabaret singer. Escola is the first non-binary performer to win a Tony Award.