The Night Broadway Crowns Its Best
Tonight, Radio City Music Hall becomes the center of the American theatrical universe. The 79th Annual Tony Awards — Broadway's equivalent of the Super Bowl, the Oscars, and a standing ovation rolled into one glittering evening — air live on CBS at 8 p.m. ET, hosted by Grammy-winning superstar P!NK. The ceremony honors the best productions of the 2025–26 Broadway season, closing a year in which the Great White Way continued its remarkable post-pandemic resurgence, drawing audiences back to the stories, spectacle, and singular electricity that only live theatre can provide.
Named for a Woman Who Believed in the Stage
The Tony Awards take their name — and their spirit — from Antoinette Perry, an actress, director, producer, and the wartime chairwoman of the American Theatre Wing, who died in 1946 at the age of 58. Perry had shepherded the Wing through World War II, using the power of the stage to support the war effort, fund troop entertainment, and train thousands of returning veterans in the theatrical arts. When producer Brock Pemberton proposed an award in her memory the following year, he simply called it a Tony — her lifelong nickname. On Easter Sunday, April 6, 1947, more than 1,000 guests gathered in the Grand Ballroom of the Waldorf Astoria hotel for the first ceremony, where thirteen winners were honored across ten categories, and performers including Mickey Rooney and Ethel Waters took the stage. The award itself, for the first two years, was a Tiffany compact for women and a gold money clip for men.
From that hotel ballroom, the Tonys grew into the most prestigious honor in American live theatre. Television coverage began in 1956, and the annual ceremony gradually expanded into the elaborate, performance-packed broadcast it is today — a showcase where nominated productions perform live for millions of viewers, making the Tonys uniquely powerful among major awards shows. A Tony win can transform a show's commercial fate overnight, sending ticket sales surging and extending runs that might otherwise have closed. This year, The Lost Boys and Schmigadoon! lead all nominees with twelve nods apiece, including Best Musical, while Lincoln Center Theater's Ragtime earned eleven nominations and Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman tops the play categories with nine.
Tonight's ceremony carries its own sense of occasion beyond the competitive field. The original cast of The Book of Mormon reunites to mark that landmark musical's 15th anniversary. Rachel Zegler delivers a tribute to A Chorus Line on its 50th. And Chicago — Broadway's record-breaking evergreen, running continuously since 1996 — celebrates thirty years on stage. Antoinette Perry, who spent her life building something she believed was essential to the human spirit, might have found the perfect word for all of it: encore.