| 78th Tony Awards | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
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| Date | June 8, 2025 | |||
| Venue | Radio City Music Hall | |||
| Hosted by | Cynthia Erivo | |||
| Most wins | Maybe Happy Ending (6) | |||
| Most nominations | Buena Vista Social Club,Death Becomes Her, andMaybe Happy Ending (10) | |||
| Website | tonyawards | |||
| Television/radio coverage | ||||
| Network | CBS Paramount+ Pluto TV | |||
| Viewership | 4.9 million (CBS) | |||
| Produced by | Ricky Kirshner Glenn Weiss | |||
| Directed by | Glenn Weiss | |||
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The78th Tony Awards were held on June 8, 2025, to recognize excellence inBroadway productions during the 2024–25 season. The ceremony took place atRadio City Music Hall inNew York City, and was broadcast onCBS, with streaming available onParamount+ andPluto TV.[1] The show was hosted byCynthia Erivo.
The musicalsDeath Becomes Her,Buena Vista Social Club, andMaybe Happy Ending led the field with ten nominations each.Maybe Happy Ending emerged as the night's most-awarded production, winning six Tony Awards includingBest Musical andBest Actor in a Musical forDarren Criss.Branden Jacobs-Jenkins’ playPurpose wonBest Play.
Other top acting honors went toNicole Scherzinger (Best Actress in a Musical),Cole Escola (Best Actor in a Play), andSarah Snook (Best Actress in a Play).
Pluto TV streamed the pre-ceremony broadcastThe Tony Awards: Act One, hosted byDarren Criss andRenée Elise Goldsberry.[2]Brian Stokes Mitchell served as the announcer.[3]
Cynthia Erivo served as host.[4] Following the ceremony,NPR praised her comedy,[5] theAssociated Press described her as an "amiable host",[6] andDeadline called her "absolutely flawless".[7]Vulture praised her opening number, noting she had "a really smart strategy...: joking to a minimum (not her strong suit), vocals on max (there’s no one better)".[8]
The ceremony opened with a brief sketch of Erivo walking from her dressing room to the stage, while various people advise her on what she should do for the opening number, before Oprah Winfrey advises her to be herself. Upon reaching the stage, Erivo sang "Sometimes All You Need Is a Song", an original piece written byMarc Shaiman,Scott Wittman,Benj Pasek andJustin Paul which referenced various nominees.[6][7][9] She was joined by the Broadway Inspirational Voices choir partway through the number.[6]
Erivo andSara Bareilles performed a duet of "Tomorrow" for the In Memoriam section of the ceremony.[5][6] The original cast ofHamilton also performed a medley of eight songs from the show in honor of the musical's 10th anniversary, choosing to wear all-black rather than their original costumes.[5][6] The closing number was an adapted version of "And I Am Telling You I'm Not Going," with lyrics changed to reference events of the night.[8][9]
The Tony Awards eligibility dates for the 2024–2025 Broadway season were April 29, 2024, through April 27, 2025. Productions were also required to meet all other eligibility criteria as set forth by theAmerican Theatre Wing andthe Broadway League. There are 41legitimate Broadway-eligible theaters in which a production must be performed in to attain eligibility for award consideration. Nominations for the 2025 Tony Awards were announced on May 1, 2025.[10][11][12]
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The nominees for the 78th Tony Awards were announced on May 1, 2025, at 8:30am EDT byWendell Pierce andSarah Paulson. The winners were announced on June 8, 2025. The ceremony was hosted byCynthia Erivo.[13] The awards were largely spread out across various shows, with no one show "sweeping" the awards.[5]Vulture criticized the choice to exclude some awards from the main ceremony, includingBest Book,Best Score andHarvey Fierstein's acceptance of the Lifetime Achievement Award.[8]
Purpose, written byBranden Jacobs-Jenkins, wonBest Play.[14] Jacobs-Jenkins had receivedBest Revival of a Play for his playAppropriate at the77th Tony Awards.[15]Maybe Happy Ending received six awards includingBest Musical, while its directorMichael Arden wonBest Direction of a Musical[16] andDarren Criss wonBest Actor in a Musical for his role as Oliver,[17][18][19] the first Asian-American man to do so.[9]Andrew Lloyd Webber'sSunset Boulevard wonBest Revival of a Musical withNicole Scherzinger winningLeading Actress in a Musical,[18][20] the second Asian-American woman to do so.[9]Paul Tazewell wonBest Costume Design in a Musical for his work inDeath Becomes Her.[21] Actors who won on their Broadway debut includedSarah Snook who wonBest Actress in a Play for her 26 roles inThe Picture of Dorian Gray, most notablyDorian Gray,[6] andJak Malone, who wonBest Featured Actor in a Musical for his role inOperation Mincemeat asHester Leggatt.[21]
Other winners includedCole Escola who wonBest Actor in a Play for their role inOh, Mary! asMary Todd Lincoln andKara Young who wonBest Featured Actress in a Play for her role inPurpose as Aziza Houston.[21] Escola was the firstnon-binary actor to win the category,[8][9] while Young became the first Black actor to win a Tony Award in two consecutive years.[22]Francis Jue wonBest Performance by a Featured Actor in a Play for his role inYellow Face, and said in his acceptance speech that 20 years prior, "he was gifted his tuxedo from another Asian actor who wanted him to wear it to the Tonys".[6][9] Jue was the second Asian-American man to win the category, the first beingB.D. Wong forM. Butterfly in 1988.[9]
In an upset to some critics, the revival ofGypsy, headed byAudra McDonald, who is the most awarded performer in Tony history, did not win a single award.[23] Additionally,Death Becomes Her, which tied for most nominated with ten nominations, won only a single award for costuming.[23]
Source:[21]
‡ The award is presented to the producer(s) of the musical or play.
Those being recognized with non-competitive awards are below.[24]
| Accolade | Names |
|---|---|
| Lifetime Achievement in the Theatre | Harvey Fierstein |
| Isabelle Stevenson Award | Celia Keenan-Bolger |
| Special Tony Award | "The musicians who make up the band ofBuena Vista Social Club[a] |
| "The illusions and technical effects ofStranger Things: The First Shadow[b] | |
| Tony Honors for Excellence in Theatre | Great Performances |
| New 42 | |
| New York Public Library for the Performing Arts | |
| Michael P. Price | |
| Regional Theatre Tony Award | The Muny[25] |
| Excellence in Theatre Education Award | Gary Edwin Robinson fromBoys and Girls High School[26] |
Productions with multiple nominations and awards[edit] | Individuals with multiple nominations and awards[edit]
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Presenters
Performances
The ceremony featured performances from 11 nominated musicals, along with four additional performances.[27]
The ceremony drew an average of 4.85 million viewers on CBS, making it the most-viewed Tonys ceremony since the73rd Tony Awards in 2019. Figures from Paramount+, which was up 208%, brought total viewership up to 5.1 million.[28][29] This follows the news that the 2024-25 season was the highest grossing season ever for Broadway.[30]
The New York Times wrote that the ceremonies' highlights were theHamilton 10-year anniversary performance,Cynthia Erivo's hosting abilities, and the performances ofNicole Scherzinger andJonathan Groff.[31] Erivo received widespread acclaim for her hosting abilities withDeadline Hollywood declaring, "[She] did an absolutely flawless job as host...This is what an awards show should look like".[32]Entertainment Weekly cited her as one of the show's highlights saying, "From the opening seconds, Erivo defied expectations" adding, "Throughout the ceremony, she played to her strengths and it made for a superb outing as a host."[33]
Host Cynthia Erivo along withSara Bareilles performed the songTomorrow from the musicalAnnie during the In Memoriam segment, As the names and images of theater personalities who died in the past year were shown in the following order.[34]
