Ariana DeBose, Tony's host, may be the busiest woman on Broadway

“Honey,” Ariana DeBose insisted, “you're always in touch.”

DeBose, an Oscar winner and longtime Broadway phenomenon, was speaking about herself in the third person last Saturday evening. Wearing a beige ribbed T-shirt, sweatpants and platform shoes, she was still glowing from the rehearsal for Sunday's Tony Awards broadcast. “On” is an understatement: This will be her third time hosting, and her first time producing and choreographing.

“Why I did that, I will never know,” she said. “Dear Lord, the Tony family is just a giant learning experience. You have to be humble.”

modest. And very busy. DeBose is 33 years old but still very much a theater kid. Her speech was fast and exciting, and when she wasn't using a hot pink pen, she tended to reach out to pat my arm or leg, an intimate form of concentration. Soon she was going out to eat a hastily plated plate of pasta before rushing to an evening show. For the past two weeks, DeBose has been on a mission, however implausible, to see all the nominated plays and musicals.

Until the end of May, DeBose was in Winnipeg, Manitoba, filming an action movie called With Love. I arrived in New York City on the Saturday before Memorial Day and saw its premiere that Sunday. On the day we spoke, a week before the broadcast, she only had three shows left. (One of them, “Water for Elephants,” she was seeing that night.) This was in addition to the hard training days.

“These are conflicting processes,” she said of hosting and watching. “They're very different disciplines, but you can't host if you don't know who's participating. For me, that's a requirement.”

This schedule seemed exhausting. DeBose chose a different word: inspiring. “I'm not exhausted from Broadway,” she said, flashing her 100-watt smile. “I'm like, 'You're all doing it.' “You're all making moves.

This Broadway season struck her as extraordinarily diverse. Still acknowledges overarching themes. Many of the shows were about the indomitability of the human spirit. “Which is so beautiful,” she said. “That is the function of art, a reminder that there is hope in the world.” Others asked the audience to reflect on difficult topics such as prejudice, aggression and acceptance. As a dancer, she also had enthusiastic words for some of the choreography, especially the fight scene in “The Outsiders.” She described Justin Peck's “Illinoise” as a new generation's “Movin' Out,” or Bob Fosse's original “Dancin'.”

Sometimes she felt jealous, though mostly in a cheerful way, and she dreamed of what it might be like when she appeared in this season's revival of “Cabaret” or when she played Gussie in “Merryly We Roll Along.” I was impressed by this season's mix of Hollywood names and new talent. “For every 'Mother Play,' there's a 'Hell's Kitchen,'” she said, referring to veteran star Jessica Lange (“Mother Play”) and Broadway newcomer Malih Joy Moon (“Hell's Kitchen”).

When the Tonys approached her about hosting their 2022 show, she had just won an Oscar and wasn't a household name. (She's more popular now, though she's often heard in bathroom lines at shows: “Has anyone ever told you that you look just like Ariana DeBose?”) She thinks producers were drawn to her story, one band member said. good. “Beyond that, I don't know what they were smoking,” she said.

On the other side of the pandemic, her liveliness was likely a draw, as was her sunny disposition. “I have a personal rule of only positive emotions,” she said. For the past two broadcasts, she's celebrated without any irony, even in the midst of last year's writers' strike, when she was forced to work without a script.

But underlying this exuberance is what she describes as “crippling anxiety,” because she wants to be the best hostess possible and because she feels that as a queer woman of color, she has little margin for error.

“If you get it wrong, it could diminish someone else's chances,” she said. “If I go out there and mess it up, I don't know when they'll hire a woman of color or a gay person, just because I messed up one time.”

DeBose has announced that this will be her final year as Tony host, at least for a while, largely because she hopes to return to Broadway. When she left, she was naive, and now she's in her pioneering era. She said she wanted to lead a show that was “human and actionable, because I've worked in productions that aren't like that.” “When I come back, I just want to try to make it right.”

In the meantime, she had these final shows to watch and a huge awards show to prepare for. There will be dazzling outfits, a stunning opening, and a cold bottle of rosé once you take it all off. Which you will do.

“I am an artist,” she said. “This is about having fun, enjoying and celebrating. Those were my mandates. That's what we do.”