UPDATE (June 12): The Tony Awards telecast on Sunday will feature a performance from Stereophonic, the “play with music” that tied with Hell’s Kitchen, a musical based on the music of Alicia Keys, for most nominations of any production this year (13).
Will Butler, best known as a former member of Arcade Fire, received two nominations for his work on Stereophonic – best original score and best orchestrations (the latter, in tandem with Justin Craig). Plays are rarely nominated in those categories. Those two nominations allowed Stereophonic to pass the Jeremy O. Harris play Slave Play (which received 12 nods in 2020) as the most-nominated play in Tony history. (Butler discusses the challenge of writing music for the play with Billboard‘s Rebecca Milzoff here.)
The Tonys had already announced that there would be performances from all five nominees for best musical (Hell’s Kitchen, Illinoise, The Outsiders, Suffs and Water for Elephants) and from three of the four nominees for best revival of a musical (Cabaret at the Kit Kat Club, Merrily We Roll Along and The Who’s Tommy). The Tonys will presumably not include a performance from the fourth nominee for best revival of a musical, Gutenberg! The Musical!, which closed on Jan. 28.
The show also announced presenters for the broadcast, including three who have had top 10 hits on the Billboard Hot 100 — Nick Jonas, Idina Menzel and Pete Townshend — and one EGOT (Jennifer Hudson). Other presenters set for the show are Utkarsh Ambudkar, Nate Burleson, Cynthia Erivo, Jesse Tyler Ferguson, Josh Gad, Renée Elise Goldsberry, Sean Hayes, Taraji P. Henson, Julianne Hough, Angelina Jolie, Ashley Park, Jim Parsons, Wendell Pierce, Ben Platt, Anthony Ramos, Andrew Rannells, Solomon Thomas, Taylor Tomlinson, Tamara Tunie, Adrienne Warren, Patrick Wilson and Jeffrey Wright.
PREVIOUSLY (June 6): The 77th Annual Tony Awards, set to air live on both coasts on CBS on Sunday, June 16, will feature performances from the eight of the nine productions nominated for best musical or best revival of a musical, omitting only Gutenberg! The Musical!, which played its final performance on Jan. 28. The musical starred Josh Gad and Andrew Rannells, who previously starred together in The Book of Mormon.
The Tony Awards telecast will include performances from:
- Cabaret at the Kit Kat Club with nominees Gayle Rankin and Eddie Redmayne. Nine nominations, including best revival of a musical. The original production won best musical in 1967.
- Hell’s Kitchen featuring the music of producer Alicia Keys, with nominees Shoshana Bean, Brandon Victor Dixon, Kecia Lewis and Maleah Joi Moon. 13 nods, including best musical.
- Illinoise, featuring the music of Sufjan Stevens, directed and choreographed by Justin Peck. Four nods, including best musical.
- Merrily We Roll Along, a Stephen Sondheim classic with nominees Jonathan Groff, Lindsay Mendez and Daniel Radcliffe. Seven nods, including best revival of a musical. The original production was, surprisingly, passed over for a nod for best musical in 1982 (though Sondheim was nominated for original musical score).
- Suffs, a new musical whose producers include Hillary Clinton, with nominees Nikki M. James and Shaina Taub. Six nods, including best musical.
- The Outsiders, based on the book and the film, whose producers include Angelina Jolie, with nominees Joshua Boone, Brody Grant and Sky Lakota-Lynch. 12 nods, including best musical.
- The Who’s Tommy featuring music of Pete Townshend and The Who. One nomination – best revival of a musical. The original production was nominated for best musical in 1993, but lost to Kiss of the Spider Woman.
- Water for Elephants, based on the bestselling book and film, featuring Grant Gustin and the acrobatic cast. Seven nods, including best musical.
The 77th Annual Tony Awards, with Ariana DeBose hosting for the third year in a row, will air live on both coasts from the David H. Koch Theater at Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts in New York City on Sunday, June 16 (8-11 p.m. ET/5-8 p.m. PT) on CBS. The show will also stream on Paramount+ in the U.S.
The Tony Awards are produced in collaboration with Tony Award Productions and White Cherry Entertainment. Ricky Kirshner and Glenn Weiss are showrunners and executive producers for White Cherry Entertainment, and Weiss will serve as director. Jack Sussman is also an executive producer.
The Tony Awards, presented by The Broadway League and the American Theatre Wing and have been broadcast on CBS since 1978.
