P!nk to host Tony Awards as Broadway’s biggest night returns to Radio City Music Hall

P!nk will step onto Broadway’s biggest stage as the Tony Awards return to Radio City Music Hall, with a field that shows how commercial theater is being reshaped by star power, nostalgia and adaptation-driven shows. The 79th Annual Tony Awards will air live Sunday, June 7, from 8:00 to 11:00 p.m. Eastern on CBS and Paramount+, with a pre-show, The Tony Awards: Act One, set for CBS and Pluto TV beginning at 6:35 p.m. Eastern.

The ceremony is more than a trophy run. It is a test of where Broadway’s audience is headed after a season that brought in $1.89 billion at the box office, the highest gross in Broadway recorded history, and drew 14.7 million attendees, the second-best attended season on record. Audiences filled 91.2% of available seats across 77 productions, 43 of them opening during the season. Those numbers give the Tonys unusual business weight this year: the winners can still move tickets, but the broader field is already revealing which kinds of shows are commanding attention.

The nominations, announced May 5 by Uzo Aduba and Darren Criss, spread across 26 competitive categories and were drawn from the 2025-26 eligibility season that ran from April 28, 2025, through April 26, 2026. The voting body is made up of 857 designated Tony voters in the theater community, a structure that keeps the awards rooted in the industry even as the lineup increasingly reflects mainstream celebrity appeal.

That balance is visible in the leads. The Lost Boys and Schmigadoon! each entered the race with 12 nominations, while Ragtime has 11 and Death of a Salesman has nine. Several of the productions set to perform on the telecast also point to Broadway’s current mix of revivals, reimaginings and crowd-pleasers: The Lost Boys, Schmigadoon!, Titanique, Two Strangers (Carry a Cake Across New York), Cats: The Jellicle Ball, Ragtime and The Rocky Horror Show.

P!nk’s hosting debut underscores how the Tonys are leaning into recognizable names to widen their reach beyond the theater core. Laura Benanti and Tituss Burgess will handle the pre-show, and The Book of Mormon original cast is scheduled to perform, adding another layer of familiar Broadway brand power.

The special Tony Award going to the League of Resident Theatres, the largest professional theater association in the United States, is a reminder that the industry is still honoring the institutions that sustain it. LORT marks its 60th anniversary in 2026, even as the Tony race increasingly reflects a Broadway built on celebrity, revivals and commercially durable titles.