[12] A cocktail party was held on June 5, 2017, at the Sofitel New York Hotel to celebrate the season's Tony Honors for Excellence in the Theatre and Special Award recipients.

[27] The Hollywood Reporter columnist David Rooney remarked, "Spacey is a brilliant actor, but warmth and humility are perhaps not his strongest suits.

So opening on the defensive, with a messy mashup of songs from current-season musicals that he repurposed to head off any eventual criticism of his hosting performance, started the show on a strained note.

"[28] The New York Times theatre critic Neil Genzlinger commented, "Sunday night's broadcast of Broadway's annual celebration of itself had trouble figuring out what to do with Kevin Spacey, the evening's host, making use of him in ways that ranged from torturous (the opening number) to tolerable (he does pretty good Johnny Carson and Bill Clinton impressions).

"[29] Cynthia Littleton from Variety wrote, "The biggest shortcoming was host Kevin Spacey, who just didn't deliver the same kind of engaging effort as his recent predecessors.

"[30] The Guardian columnist Alexis Soloski wrote, "The House of Cards actor offered outdated Johnny Carson impressions, a Bobby Darin number and a misfiring gag about Hillary Clinton's emails on a night of occasional shock and unforgivable schtick.

"[31] IndieWire theatre critic Charles Isherwood commented, "Full of allusions to previous hosts (Neil Patrick Harris, James Corden, Hugh Jackman), it seemed to drag on forever — and was not particularly enlivened by guest appearances by Stephen Colbert and Whoopi Goldberg.

"[32] In addition, television critic Robert Lloyd of the Los Angeles Times remarked, "Kevin Spacey was the somewhat surprising — though certainly not unqualified — host of the 71st running of the Broadway theater-honoring Tony Awards, broadcast Sunday night from New York's Radio City Music Hall.

[36] Broadway actors Justin Guarini, Kevin Smith Kirkwood, Okieriete Onaodowan, David Abeles, and Chuck Cooper performed Boyz II Men's "It's So Hard to Say Goodbye to Yesterday" as images of theatre personalities who died in the past year were shown in the following order.