Schmigadoon! wins big as John Lithgow makes Tony history at 80

Broadway’s brightest trophies landed in a ceremony that kept turning the spotlight back toward the people who make the spotlight possible. At Radio City Music Hall, the 79th Tony Awards mixed nostalgia, gratitude and ensemble spirit as P!NK hosted for the first time, the show aired live on CBS and streamed on Paramount+, and acceptance speeches repeatedly thanked spouses, parents, kids, teachers and the backstage hands who keep productions alive.

Schmigadoon!, the Apple TV musical comedy that satirizes Broadway itself, won Best Musical after entering the night with 12 nominations, tied for the lead with The Lost Boys. The nominations had been chosen by an independent committee of 55 theatre professionals, and the final tally showed how crowded the field was: Death of a Salesman led the night with six wins, while Schmigadoon!, The Lost Boys and Ragtime each collected four. The result gave the ceremony a feel-good center, but the deeper story was how the winners kept pointing away from individual glory and toward the network of labor that gets a show onto a stage.

That theme was clearest in the acting races. John Lithgow won Best Lead Actor in a Play for Giant at age 80, becoming the oldest man ever to win a competitive acting Tony. The win also ended a 53-year span between his Tony acting victories. Laurie Metcalf, meanwhile, captured her third acting Tony, another reminder that Broadway’s most durable careers are built over decades, not seasons.

The night also leaned hard into Broadway memory. The original cast of The Book of Mormon, including Josh Gad, Nikki M. James and Andrew Rannells, reunited for a performance marking the show’s 15th anniversary, one of the ceremony’s biggest crowd-pleasers. The Tonys also nodded to A Chorus Line’s 50th anniversary and Rent’s 30th, framing the event as a reunion of generations rather than a simple winners’ parade.

P!NK opened with a self-deprecating bit that brought Neil Patrick Harris onstage to reassure her, a light touch that matched the evening’s breezy tone. Offstage, though, the most revealing moments came in the speeches. Caissie Levy thanked babysitters for making it possible to be both a Broadway actor and a mother, a gesture that captured the hidden support system behind the marquee names. That same ethos ran through the Broadway Awards’ own language about the industry’s “hardest working people in showbiz,” and through programs that continue to elevate theater teachers. The message of the night was plain: Broadway is won not just by stars, but by the care, craft and ensemble work surrounding them.