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Cleveland Play House artistic director Laura Kepley and Play House managing director Kevin Moore display their hardware: the 2015 regional Tony Award.

(Polk & Co.)

CLEVELAND, Ohio - Some 100 staff members, family and friends of the Cleveland Play House gathered on the Connor Palace stage Sunday to watch Broadway celebrate its biggest night and catch a glimpse of American's oldest regional theater receive a Tony Award. (A photo? A teeny-tiny website clip? Pretty Please?)

The problem: Play House artistic director Laura Kepley and managing director Kevin Moore picked up the 2015 regional Tony Award from "Aladdin's" Genie James Monroe Iglehart and Jessie Mueller, who originated the role of Carole King in the bio-musical "Beautiful," during an earlier, Creative Arts Awards ceremony prior to the 8 p.m. Tony broadcast.

But Play House staffers hoped to get ahold of a few seconds of the Big Moment sometime during the evening so they could beam it onto a giant screen for the hopeful hometown crowd.

Minutes ticked by as they watched TonyAwards.com for a sign. Then an hour and . . . nada. Nobody carped or complained. It was a room full of Clevelanders, after all, not New Yorkers.

People sipped cocktails, took photos in front of a giant CPH sign and played Tony Awards bingo (sample squares: "Winner thanks their parents;" "Acceptance speech gets bleeped;" "A play you never heard of wins.")

CPH brass Laura Kepley and Kevin Moore take a victory lap outside New York's Radio City Music Hall after scoring the 2015 regional Tony Award.

They also actually watched the show and applauded as Helen Mirren snagged a Tony for her performance as Queen Elizabeth II in "The Audience," and gave it up for the first all-female writing team to win best original score - Jeanine Tesori and Lisa Kron - for "Fun Home," the musical based on Oberlin alumna Alison Bechdel's essential graphic novel. Hey, it only took 69 years. ("Fun Home" made something of a sweep, winning a slew of awards including best musical, arguably the night's biggest prize.)

"It's ladies night!" said Play House apprentice Phaedra Scott when Marianne Elliot took best director for the National Theatre production of "The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time."

She summed up the feeling in the room nicely and the coolness of this year's Tony Awards - leagues ahead of the Oscars in terms of recognizing the extraordinary work of female directors and other artists.

And then, a little after 9:30 p.m., Play House faithful trolling the web found that elusive clip and played Kepley and Moore's joint acceptance speech in its entirety during a commercial break.

Moore thanked "the entire Northeast, Ohio community" among others and Kepley, luminous in a black gown by Vicky Tiel Couture, offered a brief, rousing history of the Play House:

"Cleveland Play House was founded in 1915 and through those 100 years we have never missed a season, not during the Great Depression or World War II.

"We have produced over 1,600 plays as well as 150 world premieres. At age 100, we are determined as ever to tell stories that matter, to nurture artists at every stage of their career, create thrilling bold and necessary new work and develop innovative education programs that help our young people grow and prosper.

" . . . Thank you so much for this award. Cleveland Play House cannot think of a better way to launch our centennial season and the next 100 years of making great theater for our great community."

Her last few words were drowned out by a rafter rattling cheer.

Now everyone in the Play House family can mark off that last bingo square: "Someone you've worked with wins a Tony."