P!NK hosts Tony Awards as The Lost Boys and Schmigadoon! lead nominations

P!NK took the Tony host chair as the 79th Annual Tony Awards returned to Radio City Music Hall, putting Broadway’s biggest night back on a national stage. CBS carried the ceremony live and Paramount+ streamed it from 8:00 to 11:00 p.m. ET, with the official pre-show, The Tony Awards: Act One, delivering live exclusive coverage before the telecast. The result was a clear snapshot of a Broadway season built on marquee titles, familiar brands and a renewed push to make the awards itself a prime-time event.

Nominations had already pointed to where the industry’s attention was headed. The Lost Boys: A New Musical and Schmigadoon! led the field with 12 nominations each, followed by Ragtime with 11. Death of a Salesman emerged as the most-nominated play with nine. Uzo Aduba and Darren Criss announced the nominations on May 5 in 26 competitive categories, and 857 designated Tony voters were responsible for choosing the winners. That mix of titles reflected a Broadway marketplace still leaning on recognizable properties, prestige revivals and new material with strong commercial appeal.

The ceremony covered productions that opened during the 2025-2026 Tony eligibility season, which ran from April 28, 2025, through April 26, 2026. Presented by the Broadway League and the American Theatre Wing, and produced with Tony Award Productions, the show returned to a venue long associated with major entertainment events, underscoring how much Broadway’s biggest evening depends on spectacle as much as awards. Radio City’s role reinforced the industry’s effort to keep the Tonys positioned as both a celebration and a sales pitch for the season ahead.

Broadway’s regional pipeline also got a high-profile salute. The Tony Awards presented a Special Tony Award to the League of Resident Theatres, or LORT, which it describes as the largest professional theatre association of its kind in the United States. LORT includes 82 member theatres in 30 states and the District of Columbia, and the Tony Awards say nearly 400 Broadway productions were developed and originated at those theatres. In a year when Broadway was still recalibrating after volatile seasons, that recognition pointed to a system in which the next commercial hit often begins well beyond Manhattan, then arrives in New York with national expectations attached.