Pink, Maya Rudolph and Cole Escola light up the Tony Awards in New York
Pink’s 170-plus-performer opener, Maya Rudolph and Cole Escola’s comic sparring, and a parade of nominees made Broadway feel built for TV.
The Tony Awards leaned into star power, nostalgia and irreverence Sunday night, turning Radio City Music Hall into a Broadway-wide showcase for a national CBS audience. Pink’s opening “Lady Marmalade” number featured more than 170 Broadway performers, and Megan Thee Stallion made one of the night’s biggest entrances as the ceremony tried to sell theater far beyond New York.
Pink, announced in April by Tony Award Productions as host of the 79th Annual Tony Awards, brought a fan’s enthusiasm and a headliner’s polish to the show. She has said Broadway shaped how she puts her own shows together, and that she first thought she should ask her daughter for permission before taking the job. CBS aired the telecast live from 8 to 11 p.m. ET, while Paramount+ streamed it, giving the evening a broad national reach.
The musical numbers doubled as a snapshot of what Broadway is offering audiences in 2026. The telecast included performances from all four Best Musical nominees, The Lost Boys, Schmigadoon!, Titanique and Two Strangers (Carry a Cake Across New York), as well as all three Best Revival of a Musical nominees, Cats: The Jellicle Ball, Ragtime and The Rocky Horror Show. Anniversary performances for The Book of Mormon, marking 15 years, and Chicago, marking 30, added a second layer of nostalgia, with former stars returning to old roles.
If the telecast needed a comic ignition point, Maya Rudolph and Cole Escola supplied it. They opened the main-award proceedings with the first prize of the night, Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role in a Play, and mined jokes from Oedipus and Oh, Mary! The pairing worked because Escola created Oh, Mary! and Rudolph currently stars in it, giving the bit an inside-theater snap that still played to the wider audience.
The night also reflected Broadway’s larger cultural momentum. AP noted that Liberation joined a small historical group of plays to win both the Pulitzer Prize for Drama and the Tony Award in the same year, a reminder that the season’s brightest commercial spectacle also carried real critical weight. Between Pink’s punk energy, Rudolph and Escola’s sharp timing, and the revival numbers that drew on Broadway memory, the ceremony showed a stage community still trying to convert prestige into a national event.
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