Broadway prom is this Sunday. The 79th Tony Awards land at Radio City Music Hall on Sunday, June 7, P!NK is hosting (the Tonys looked at a woman who sings flawlessly while spinning forty feet above the stage and said “yes, her”), and the races are the most wide-open they’ve been in years. Here’s how to watch, who’s up, and our picks — delivered with the confidence of someone who will not be answering questions Monday morning.
How to watch the 2026 Tony Awards
- When: Sunday, June 7, 8:00–11:00 PM ET
- Where: CBS, streaming live on Paramount+
- Pre-show: The Tony Awards: Act One, free on Pluto TV starting 6:35 PM ET, hosted by Laura Benanti and Tituss Burgess — the rare pre-show with hosts funnier than most award shows’ actual hosts
- Venue: Radio City Music Hall, which you cannot get into, because tickets started at $731. Your couch is fine.
The nomination leaderboard
Two shows tied at the top with a dozen nods apiece, and both are musicals nobody saw coming two years ago:
- The Lost Boys — 12 nominations. Vampires on Broadway, and somehow it works.
- Schmigadoon! — 12 nominations. The TV show that became a stage musical about stage musicals. Broadway loves nothing more than itself.
- Ragtime — 11 nominations for the Lincoln Center revival that turned skeptics into criers.
- Death of a Salesman, Cats: The Jellicle Ball, and The Rocky Horror Show — 9 each.
- Two Strangers (Carry a Cake Across New York) — 8, and the longest title-to-nomination ratio in Tony history. We didn’t check. Feels true.
Our picks for the big ones
Best Musical: The Lost Boys
The early money spent months on Schmigadoon! — road producers vote, and a title with a built-in TV audience tours like a dream. But The Lost Boys has the late momentum: a big, gorgeous, actual Broadway musical with a rock score by The Rescues that doesn’t sound like it was grown in a lab. Titaníque and Two Strangers round out the category and both have rabid fans, but this is a two-vampire race. Pick: The Lost Boys.
Best Play: Liberation
Bess Wohl’s Liberation against Mark Rosenblatt’s Giant, and you could flip a coin without embarrassing yourself. Giant rides John Lithgow’s towering Roald Dahl, but Liberation is the play people couldn’t stop arguing about at dinner afterward — which is what a Best Play winner does. Pick: Liberation.
Best Revival of a Musical: Ragtime
The toughest call on the ballot for our money. Cats: The Jellicle Ball took the most famous litter box in theater history and reinvented it inside Harlem ballroom culture — it’s the boldest swing of the season. But Ragtime is the one that sends voters out of the theater wrecked, and Tony voters reward wrecked. Pick: Ragtime, with Cats as the upset that would make us cheer anyway.
Best Revival of a Play: Death of a Salesman
Joe Mantello’s stripped-down Death of a Salesman has been the frontrunner since opening night, and nothing in the category — not Every Brilliant Thing, not Fallen Angels, not the sneaky-great Becky Shaw — has knocked it loose. Attention must be paid, etc. Pick: Salesman.
Lead Actor in a Musical: Joshua Henry
The closest thing to a lock all night. Joshua Henry’s Coalhouse Walker in Ragtime is the performance of the season — when “Make Them Hear You” ends, the roof of the Vivian Beaumont needs a minute. Pick: Henry, and it’s not close.
Lead Actress in a Musical: Caissie Levy
Our heart says Marla Mindelle, whose unhinged Celine Dion in Titaníque is the funniest thing currently legal in New York State. Our head says Caissie Levy delivers twenty years of Broadway craft in one Ragtime performance and voters know it. Pick: Levy. Heart: Mindelle. The heart loses at the Tonys. It always does.
Lead Actor in a Play: Nathan Lane
Nathan Lane’s Willy Loman versus John Lithgow’s Roald Dahl is the heavyweight bout of the night — two legends, zero weak arguments. Throw in Daniel Radcliffe charming the entire Hudson Theatre in Every Brilliant Thing and Mark Strong anchoring Oedipus, and this category could go four ways. Pick: Lane by a nose, because the Tonys love a career-capper.
Lead Actress in a Play: Lesley Manville
Lesley Manville’s Jocasta in Oedipus is the kind of performance people will claim to have seen for the next thirty years. Rose Byrne and Kelli O’Hara might split the Fallen Angels vote between them, which is a shame and also exactly how award math works. Pick: Manville.
Speed round: the featured races
- Featured Actress, Musical: Shoshana Bean, The Lost Boys. “Wild” is the song of the season.
- Featured Actor, Musical: André De Shields, Cats: The Jellicle Ball. You don’t bet against André De Shields. That’s not analysis, it’s policy.
- Featured Actress, Play: Laurie Metcalf, Death of a Salesman. A Linda Loman for the ages.
- Featured Actor, Play: Alden Ehrenreich, Becky Shaw — the Broadway debut of the year, though Christopher Abbott’s Biff could absolutely take it.
See the winners before the bandwagon shows up
Here’s the thing about Tony night: Monday morning, every winner’s ticket prices climb and every lottery gets ten times more crowded. The move is to get in now. The Lost Boys, Ragtime, Cats: The Jellicle Ball, Schmigadoon!, and Titaníque are all running lotteries or rush this week — our Broadway lottery hub has every live entry link in one place.
Enter a lottery, order takeout, and watch Sunday like the rest of us. If our picks go 0-for-9, we were never here.
