The 2025-2026 Broadway season — the highest-grossing in history at $1.9 billion, even though it included only six new musicals, which are usually what drive ticket sales — came to an end on Sunday night with the 79th Tony Awards at Radio City Music Hall in New York. The verdict of the 831 voters? 10 shows were worthy of recognition in at least one category: Becky Shaw, Cats: The Jellicle Ball, Death of a Salesman, Giant, Fallen Angels, Liberation, The Lost Boys, Oedipus, Ragtime and Schmigadoon!.
Best musical, the one Tony that tends to result in a meaningful box-office boost for its winner, went to Schmigadoon!, a Lorne Michaels-backed sendup of golden age Broadway musicals, over The Lost Boys, a show that appealed to a younger demo. It was a battle of screen adaptations — Schmigadoon! was inspired by the Apple TV series of the same name, while The Lost Boys is a musical spin on the 1987 film of the same name — which shared the distinction of most Tony noms of any show this season, 12.
In what was seen as a similarly close contest, Lincoln Center’s production of Ragtime, the first on Broadway since the show first ran from 1998 through 2000, won best revival of a musical over Cats: The Jellicle Ball, an edgy reimagining of the polarizing show that ran on the Great White Way from 1982 through 2000.
The remaining musical awards, which consider both new productions and revivals alongside each other, were spread fairly evenly between the aforementioned four shows. Best direction went to Cats (specifically to the team of Zhailon Levingston and Bill Rauch), as did best choreography and costume design (making Qween Jean the first openly trans person to win a Tony). Best actor and actress went to Ragtime’s Joshua Henry and Caissie Levy, respectively, and the show was also recognized for best sound design. The Lost Boys claimed best featured actor and featured actress for, respectively, 26-year-old Ali Louis Bourzgui, who upset Cats’ André De Shields, and veteran trouper Shoshana Bean, as well as lighting design of a musical and scenic design of a musical. (The legendary De Shields, 80, won seven years ago for Hadestown.) And Schmigadoon! also took home best book, original score and orchestrations. (Its wins made Apple TV the fastest streamer to an EGOT, just six-and-a-half years after its launch.)
Liberation, a memory play about 1970s feminism, which started off Broadway and was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for drama last month, was chosen for the best play Tony over Giant, a troubling portrait of children’s author Roald Dahl at the moment when he was first facing accusations of antisemitism — this despite the fact that the former closed back in February, while the latter is still running and a huge box office hit, having recouped its $5.6 million capitalization in just 10 weeks.
Rather remarkably, Liberation scribe Bess Wohl became the first female American playwright in 38 years to win the best play Tony, following the late Wendy Wasserstein, who was awarded it for The Heidi Chronicles. Oddly enough, though, that high honor was the only win of the night for Liberation, while Giant claimed its sole trophy for its lead actor John Lithgow, marking his third Tony win, 53 years after his first.
Most of the awards for plays, though, went to a universally-acclaimed production of Arthur Miller’s “Great American Play,” Death of a Salesman. Its sixth remounting on Broadway since the 1949 original was recognized with best revival, direction (Joe Mantello’s third Tony for directing, after the play Take Me Out in 2003 and the musical Assassins in 2004), featured actress (Laurie Metcalf’s third win, all in the last decade, after A Doll’s House, Part 2 in 2017 and Three Tall Women in 2018), lighting design, scenic design and sound design. Indeed, no show of any genre was recognized with more Tonys this year than the six for Death of a Salesman.
Alas, the show’s heartbreaking Willy Loman, Nathan Lane, was stopped short of a fourth Tony win by Lithgow, in what was probably the most closely-watched race of the night; and Biff Loman, 40-year-old Christopher Abbott, was upset by a fellow young thespian who is also known for screen work, 36-year-old Alden Ehrenreich for Becky Shaw, a revival of a dark comedy in which Ehrenreich portrays a truly toxic male.
Ehrenreich’s win was the only one for Becky Shaw. This year’s two other shows with one-off wins were Oedipus, for which Lesley Manville won best actress in a play in recognition of her Broadway debut at age 70 (the show closed back in February); and Fallen Angels, the first Broadway revival in 70 years of a lesser-known Noel Coward comedy (it closed earlier on Sunday), which snagged best costume design for a play.
Meanwhile, 14 Tony-nominated shows went home completely emptyhanded: Two Strangers (Carry a Cake Across New York), The Balusters, Little Bear Ridge Road, Titaníque, Richard O’Brien’s The Rocky Horror Show, Every Brilliant Thing, Punch, Bug, Chess, Marjorie Prime, Waiting for Godot, Joe Turner’s Come and Gone, Dog Day Afternoon and The Fear of 13.
Fun fact: three of the six Tony-nominated performers who appeared on this year’s THR Tonys Roundtable — Bean, Henry and Lithgow — took home hardware.
