2025 Tony Awards: ‘Hamilton’ Reunion, ‘Wicked’ Host & More Reasons to Watch

Broadway is back, baby! After several years of post-pandemic struggles, box office grosses set a new record this season, thanks to a flurry of hit new musicals like Death Becomes Her, Maybe Happy Ending, Buena Vista Social Club, and Dead Outlaw. Starry revivals of Gypsy (with Audra McDonald) and Sunset Boulevard (with Nicole Scherzinger) are also generating buzz. But it’s the non-musical plays with Hollywood headliners — like Good Night, and Good Luck (which will live-stream on CNN on June 7) with George Clooney, Glengarry Glen Ross with Bob Odenkirk, Kieran Culkin and Bill Burr, and Othello with Jake Gyllenhaal and Denzel Washington — that are pulling in the most eye-popping box office numbers (despite a lack of Tony Award nominations). 

Now, the best of Broadway will be celebrated at the 78th Annual Tony Awards, live from Radio City Music Hall, airing Sunday, June 8, hosted by Cynthia Erivo. A special live preshow, “The Tony Award: Act One” will be emceed by Darren Criss and Renée Elise Goldsberry and streams at 6:40/5:40c on Pluto TV.

So what else makes this year’s ceremony so worth watching?

The host is the moment.

Cynthia Erivo, who played Elphaba in the blockbuster Wicked film and leads the sequel Wicked: For Good, will be a first-time Tony Awards host. While she’s already a Tony winner for the 2015 to 2016 Color Purple revival and a three-time Oscar nominee (for Wicked and Harriet), Erivo doesn’t have much experience as a high-profile host and isn’t known for comedy. Yet producers are sure to lean on her booming pipes (and acting chops) in a show-stopping production number or two. How will she handle the in-between-segments banter as a first-time host? Considering her acting skills, we expect her to defy gravity (and maybe even best that epic Oscars moment?).

The presenter list is stacked.

The A-list nominees already include Hollywood stars like George Clooney, Mia Farrow, Sarah Snook, Nicole Scherzinger, and Darren Criss, but there will also be a parade of bold-faced names presenting the awards. Among the headliners will be Hacks Emmy winner Jean Smart, who’s on Broadway in a new play Call Me Izzy; Bill and Ted themselves, Keanu Reeves and Alex Winter, promoting their fall engagement of Waiting for Godot on Broadway; and Lea Michele and Aaron Tveit, who will headline an upcoming revival of the musical Chess.

Wicked star Kristin Chenoweth, who could be a Tony frontrunner next season for the new musical The Queen of Versailles, and Adam Lambert, who appeared on Broadway in Cabaret last fall, will also be presenters. Grey’s Anatomy vet LaTanya Richardson Jackson, who’s Tony-nominated this season for her role in the family drama Purpose, will likely present alongside her husband, Samuel L. Jackson.

Also appearing at the podium: Broadway veterans like Allison Janney, Ariana DeBose, Ben Stiller, Bryan Cranston, Danielle Brooks, Kelli O’Hara, Katie Holmes, Lea Salonga, Lin-Manuel Miranda, Michelle Williams, Rachel Bay Jones, Sara Bareilles, Sarah Paulson, and Oprah Winfrey herself.

The performances are going to be must-sees.

The most unique and exciting part of the Tonys is the electrifying live performances by the nominated musicals. The casts of the five Best Musical nominees — Buena Vista Social Club, Dead Outlaw, Maybe Happy Ending, Operation Mincemeat, and Death Becomes Her — will perform live. Musical numbers from the four Best Musical Revival nominees — Floyd Collins, Gypsy, Pirates! The Penzance Musical and Sunset Boulevard — will also be seen on the broadcast. In addition, Just in Time and Real Women Have Curves, musicals that didn’t get nominated in either of those categories but received key nominations elsewhere will also take the stage. (Just in Time is up for six Tonys, including Lead Actor in a Musical for Jonathan Groff; Real Women Have Curves is vying for two, including Featured Actress in a Musical for Justina Machado.) There’s also been a grassroots campaign to get Boop! The Musical a slot on the telecast after it was snubbed by producers, despite three Tony nominations including Lead Actress in a Musical for Jasmine Amy Rogers. Some fans are also up in arms that Smash, too, was passed over for a spot, despite two nominations.

You won’t want to miss your shot to witness the Hamilton reunion live.

You wanna be in the room (at least, near a TV) where it happens! To celebrate the 10th anniversary of Lin-Manuel Miranda’s groundbreaking cultural sensation Hamilton bowing on Broadway, the show’s original cast will reunite for a special performance honoring that Tony award-winning landmark show. Among the actors participating will be creator and star Miranda, Leslie Odom Jr. (who will return to his Tony award-winning role as Aaron Burr in Hamilton in the fall), Phillipa Soo, Renée Elise Goldsberry, Daveed Diggs, Christopher Jackson, Ariana DeBose and Jonathan Groff. Will they perform the show’s title tune, “The Room Where It Happens,” “My Shot,” “Satisfied,” or a medley of several songs? What other surprises could be in store? Wait for it, wait for it!

TV fans will have something to watch for as well.

There are two shows that were inspired by small-screen adventures being honored throughout the night as well. Smash, the musical loosely inspired by the loved-and-loathed 2012-13 television series, has been more of a bomb than a Bombshell, the fictional show-within-a show about Marilyn Monroe that Smash chronicles the making-of. It only scored two Tony nominations—Brooks Ashmanskas for Featured Actor in a Musical and Joshua Bergasse for Choreography. Ashmanskas recently won the Drama Desk award for his hilarious hurricane of a performance, but he’s in a close race with Jak Malone for his heartrending turn in Operation Mincemeat.

Stranger Things: The First Shadow, a visually spectacular origin story tied into the popular Netflix series’ mythology, scored five Tony nods, including for Louis McCartney for Lead Actor in a Play, thanks to his psychic breakdown as the tortured Henry Creel. Henry was Season 4’s main antagonist, Vecna, and First Shadow tells Henry’s backstory in 1959 before he was overtaken by demonic forces. The events of the play will become vital to Season 5’s storyline. So key details and information from the stage play will be threaded throughout the upcoming season. Stranger Things, a technological marvel that pulls off several eye-popping set pieces, could capture Tony wins in some categories like scenic design, costume design, lighting design, and sound design of a play.

The race for Best Musical is truly tight.

This race for the night’s biggest prize is shaping up as a nail-biting face-off between Maybe Happy Ending, the ingenious robots-in-love fable, and the fantastically strange Dead Outlaw, a rollicking true story of a troubled man who became a failed bank and train robber but found infamy after death as a corpse in traveling sideshows. With magnetic performances from Darren Criss and Helen J. Shen, look for Maybe Happy Ending to outgun Outlaw for the night’s biggest prize. Still, two shows could spring an upset: The electrifying Buena Vista Social Club, inspired by the landmark album by a group of influential Cuban musicians and its subsequent Oscar-nominated documentary. Or the laugh-riot Death Becomes Her, based on the 1992 film and featuring a devastatingly sardonic script and some hilariously demented songs. In other words, this is not a foregone conclusion, and we’re itching to know what will happen.

The Best Play race could be a squeaker, too.

The buoyantly bonkers Oh, Mary!, downtown theater maven Cole Escola’s fake-history play about an overdramatic, crackpot Mary Todd Lincoln as a wannabe cabaret star, has been the frontrunner all season. But two plays are gaining ground and could play spoiler: Purpose, a family drama about a Jesse Jackson-like civil rights trailblazer and his dysfunctional political clan; and John Proctor Is the Villain, headlined by Stranger Things’ Sadie Sink, about a group of high school girls grappling with feminism, gender power dynamics and the fallout of the #MeToo movement.

Best Lead Actress in a Musical is as competitive as ever.

This always-competitive category shapes up as a face-off between Broadway superstar Audra McDonald, the most decorated Tony Award winner and nominee of all time, for her emotionally wrenching reinvention of the steamrolling Momma Rose in Gypsy, and former Pussycat Doll and The X Factor judge Nicole Scherzinger for her equally earth-shaking portrayal of silent film icon-turned-deranged dragon-lady Norma Desmond in Sunset Boulevard. Scherzinger not only acts to the audience but some of her performance is recorded by onstage camera crews and projected onto a 23-foot-tall screen. While Scherzinger scored the Olivier Award in 2024 when the production originated in London, McDonald just won the Drama Desk award and has already amassed six Tonys in her storied career. Expect a photo finish. Their musicals, Gypsy and Sunset Boulevard, are also the leading contenders for Best Musical Revival.

A trio of television and Broadway triple-threats are in contention for Best Lead Actor in a Musical.

Jonathan Groff, Darren Criss, and Jeremy Jordan all have extensive theater pedigrees but the trio are also well-known for their television work. Groff had a leading role on Netflix’s FBI profiler series Mindhunter and in the tenderhearted gay drama Looking. Jordan was a leading man on Supergirl and had his breakthrough in NBC’s Smash, while Criss is an Emmy winner for The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story and also starred on Glee. For this year’s Tonys, Groff is nominated for playing crooner Bobby Darin in the bio-musical Just in Time. Jordan, who was on Broadway last season in Gatsby, plays a fearless cave explorer who gets trapped underground in Floyd Collins. Criss plays a robot who falls in love with the android across the hall in Maybe Happy Ending. Groff won this award a year ago for Merrily We Roll Along, so look for Criss to triumph for his uncanny physical and emotional transformation in Maybe Happy Ending.

Will George Clooney have a good night (and good luck)?

A Hollywood luminary for decades, Clooney is now nominated for Best Lead Actor in a Play for her performance as legendary newscaster Edward R. Murrow in Good Night, and Good Luck, the blockbuster stage adaptation of his Oscar-nominated 2005 film. Despite charming Broadway, he’s probably in third place in this race. The favorite? Cole Escola for the writer and deadpan actor’s hilariously anti-historical comedy Oh Mary!, in which they play a demented version of Mary Todd Lincoln. Still, beloved Hawaii Five-0 and Lost star Daniel Dae Kim could spring the upset for his performance as a self-deluding playwright in the revival of David Henry Hwang’s Yellow Face, a funny and timely exploration of the complexities of identity politics, now available to stream on PBS’s Great Performances).

Will Succession‘s Sarah Snook get halfway to EGOT?

Snook, who won the Emmy in 2023 for Succession, is the leading contender for Best Lead Actress in a Play. She’s nominated for her tour-de-force turn playing more than two dozen characters in the technically audacious adaptation of Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray. Snook performs directly to the audience at times, but mostly to camera crews that follow her around the stage. The images are projected onto several moving LCD screens with Snook also acting alongside herself as pre-recorded versions of some characters. It’s an astonishing feat. She may be squaring off against celebrated actresses like Mia Farrow, LaTanya Richardson Jackson, and Laura Donnelly, along with Stranger Things‘ Sadie Sink for her fiery John Proctor Is the Villain role, but the Succession star is a sure thing to pocket this prize.

Will the hit musical Death Becomes Her get blanked at the Tonys?

Death Becomes Her tied with Maybe Happy Ending and Buena Vista Social Club for the most Tony nominations this season, 10 for each show, but there’s a real chance it could come up empty at the awards. Could it pull off an upset for Best Actress? That’s unlikely, with dual nominees Megan Hilty and Jennifer Simard likely canceling each other out. It’s a strong contender for Best Book and Best Score, but could lose out to Maybe Happy Ending or Dead Outlaw in those contests. The show’s brightest prospects may lie in the technical categories, for Paul Tazewell’s eye-popping costumes or Derek McLane’s inventive scenic design. Hopefully, the gut-busting (literally!) Death can rise from the ashes to Tonys immortality!

Tony Awards history could be made Sunday night.

Two exceedingly likable performers—Groff, who’s nominated for Just in Time and won last year for Merrily We Roll Along, and Kara Young, who’s nominated for Featured Actress in a Play for Purpose and won last year for Purlie Victorious—could join an esteemed list of only six performers to win two Tony awards in a row (Laurie Metcalf, Judith Light, Stephen Spinella, Sandy Dennis, Gwen Verdon, and Shirley Booth were the previous). Young has already blazed a trail to become only the second performer to be nominated for four Tony Awards in succession and would become the first person of color to win two Tonys consecutively. Groff would become the first actor to win back-to-back Lead Actor in a Musical prizes. Daniel Dae Kim could become the first Asian winner for Leading Actor in a Play. Then there’s Audra McDonald, already the most decorated Tony Award winner in history, who could add a seventh Tony to the unprecedented six trophies she’s already collected.

Finally: When Sunset Boulevard premiered on Broadway in 1994, it walked off with seven Tony Awards the following spring, including Best Musical. But the show’s legendary composer Andrew Lloyd Webber, who once dominated Broadway with long-running warhorse musicals like The Phantom of the Opera, Cats, and Evita, hasn’t won a Tony Award for Best Musical or Best Musical Revival in the three decades since then. But this revival of Sunset has heat, and it could find Lloyd Webber finally returning to the Tony spotlight.

Tony Awards, June 8, 8/7c, CBS and Paramount+