Richland's Santino Fontana Wins Tony For Lead Actor in a Musical

Richland's Santino Fontana won the "Leading Actor in a Musical" Tony Award last night at the ceremony inside Radio City Music Hall in New York City.

Fontana won for his role in "Tootsie."

In his acceptance speech he mentioned growing up in a small town in Washington state (Richland) where watching the Tonys on TV was the only chance he got to see people who were lucky enough to make their living performing.

He also thanked his "Tootsie" cast, his wife, and mentioned looking forward to the pending birth of their first child (a girl) and gave special shout outs to his grandfather for instilling in him the importance of storytelling, and his grandmother who was a fiery red head with passion and singular voice whom he got to channel everyday.

His final thanks went to Ken Washington, an early mentor and inspiration who challenged Santino to dream big and not to waste his time on anything other than feeding his craft.

Santino first got his start at the Academy of Children's Theater in Richland.

Here's his acceptance speech from last night's Tony Awards