NYC Preview: 2026 TONY AWARD musical nominees
Photo credit: Matthew Murphy & Evan Zimmerman / Matthew Murphy / Joan Marcus
Besties, we were delighted for the recent opportunity to see a few shows on Broadway ahead of next week’s Tony Awards ceremony on 7 June when the winners will be announced. Broadway shows are a very expensive ticket, and we tracked prices as the performance day approached and were still seeing half empty Orchestra seats (Stalls to our UK Besties) priced at $200+. Yet by the time curtain rose for the performances, all three shows we saw were sold out and it was clear from the hour-long queue at the Times Square Ticket Booth that many were buying very late in the day! Booking at the theatre box office avoids additional costs but the 50% discount seemed to be only at the end of that queue! We saw three musicals which, between them, have accumulated 29 Tony nominations and will surely feature in the winners list to some extent.
The Rocky Horror Show
The Rocky Horror Show at the iconic Studio 54 on 8th Avenue and 54th Street has earned nine nominations and is currently booking until November 2026. The venue became famous from its hedonistic days as a night club from 1977, having first opened in 1927. Roundabout Theatre, who have operated the venue since 1998, have given the title a fresh updated feel whilst retaining its anarchic fun. Its fifty years since Richard O’Brien’s science fiction spoof first appeared on Broadway, with O’Brien playing Riff Raff. To celebrate the anniversary, Sam Pinkleton directs a refreshed vision with Welsh star Luke Evans strutting his stuff as Frank N Furter, clearly revelling in the camp sexualised posturing and lyrics. Riff Raff is played by Amber Gray, with Andrew Durand as Brad and Stephanie Hsu as an excellent Janet. Rachel Dratch is the narrator with a sardonic gaze and pauses carefully to allow the audience to interact. Though some do, most notably in calling Janet “a slut”, it is not as sustained or as witty as we have seen in previous performances over the last decade from audiences who know the show as well as the cast, but she takes the audience with her and they enjoy her performance.
Photo credit: Joan Marcus
The staging is simpler than previous versions but with some clever additions like singing mannequins, hands through the curtains and a spotlight on the model castles. Dr Scott is no longer in a wheelchair, and Eddie is chopped up by Frank N Furter in the auditorium toilet! Of course, we still enjoy so many of the classic compositions that parody the black and white sci-fi movies like ‘Science Fiction Double Feature’, ‘Time Warp’ and ‘Sweet Transvestite’, ‘Touch-A, Touch-A, Touch me’, which opens Act 2 leaving more to the imagination than some of the ways the seduction scene has developed over recent years.
It’s up for Best Musical Revival but that will surely go to Cats: The Jellicle Ball, with Evans, Hsu, and Dratch nominated for actor roles. It’s up for Best Scenic Design, Costumes, Lighting, Sound and Choreography too. Hsu has best chance but against stiff opposition and despite it being a joyous night, it may fail to covert any of nominations to wins. But after 50 years, it remains remarkable that it can still pack in audiences at $200 a ticket.
Two Strangers Carry a Cake Across New York
Two Strangers Carry a Cake Across New York has eight Tony nominations and is currently booking until 22 November at The Longacre Theatre on 48th Street. We paid $162 at the Box Office from the back row of the Orchestra. This reviewer missed the show in London so was pleased to catch it on Broadway, although Sam Tutty was off at the performance we attended, which was explained rather unhelpfully by the Front of House staff so that he rested his voice for the Awards ceremony performance on 7 June! However, American Vincent Michael - making his Broadway debut - did very well, even with his British Accent.
Photo credit: Matthew Murphy
It is a simple tale of Dougal, a thirty-year-old who has never met his father, arriving in New York to attend his father’s marriage at the age of 57 to the 30-year-old sister of 27-year-old Robin (Christiani Pitts) who has been sent to meet him at the airport. They get roped into collecting the four-tier cake from Brooklyn where the girls were bought up and taking it across New York for the bride. She is a waitress desperately looking for boyfriend on Tinder and when she drops a tier, Dougal tells her “for a waitress you are not vary good at carrying cakes” while teasing her that she will soon be his auntie. The cross-cultural banter is a joy and is beautifully played by the two actors. When Robin uses his father’s American Express card to give them both a good night out, things get a little more complicated leading to the ‘Hangover Duet’.
It’s up for Best Musical, Best Book, Best Score and Best Orchestrations and we would expect it to secure one of these in recognition of its quirky, fresh, but emotionally engaging music, and innovative feel. Tutty and Christiani Pitts are both nominated for their roles, and we would say that Pitts has the best chance of converting the nomination to a win. The design is very clever with a pile of baggage being multi-purposed well to earn a Best Scenic Design nomination and the clever flowing use of the revolves earns Tim Jackson a Best Direction nomination, but not enough to beat the competition. We hope that it might pick up two wins but the timing, promotion and politics do play a large part in the final selection.
Schmigadoon!
The third musical we saw was Schmigadoon, which is currently playing until January 2027 at the Nederlander Theatre on 41st Street, with a ticket bought at the Times Square Ticket Booth for $110 in the front row of the Orchestra for a great close-up view of the band and cast (if a little tight on leg room!) The fabulous musicals parody, based on the TV series, is up for 12 Tony’s and we think its likely to scoop the most awards of the three shows we saw. For any fan of musical theatre, it is a must-see show and all the more fun if you take someone less convinced by the genre to mirror the onstage relationship between Josh (Alex Brightman) and Melissa (Sara Chase). He constantly riles against the fact that people burst into song whenever they feel emotional or have a point to make, setting up some delightful metatheatre moments.
It is great fun trying to spot the refrains and parodies from musicals that have gone before. The basic set up is a cross between Oklahoma! and Brigadoon with Danny Bailey (Max Clayton), the show man, being lifted straight out of Carousel. The opening song ‘Schmigadoon!’ is a direct parody of the opening title song from Oklahoma!
‘You Can't Tame Me’ is Bailey's defiant bad-boy anthem spoof of Carousel's Billy Bigelow, while ‘Corn Puddin'‘ is a silly, fast-paced song like ‘This Was a Real Nice Clambake’ also from Carousel.
Photo credit: Evan Zimmerman
‘The Picnic Basket Auction’ is a direct lift from Oklahoma! while ‘You Done Tamed Me’ and the scene where they visit the Virginity Ruins for ‘Not That Kinda Gal’ are both spoofs of the showtune trope of women falling for rakish men, echoing ‘I Can't Say No’ also from Oklahoma!
‘Baby Talk’ is a hilarious reimagining of ‘Do, Re, Me’ and the arrival of the Countess who declares herself a Nazi echoes Baroness Schraeder from The Sound of Music.
There are echoes of Groundhog Day when they repeatedly cross the bridge to find themselves back where they started while the appearance of a Leprechaun references Finian’s Rainbow. The King and I also gets a reference with a refrain from ‘Shall We Dance’.
We expect Schmigadoon! to win Best Musical and Best Book and it is also in the running for Best Score and Best Orchestrations, so it should get at least two of these.
In the performer categories, Sara Chase (as Melissa) and Ana Gasteyer (as the puritanical Mildred Layton) are nominated and should get one of these.
In the technical categories of Best Scenic Design, Costumes, Lighting, Sound, Direction, and Choreography, we would expect the show to pick up a few wins as this is most definitely a five-star production.
So, we predict the winners are:
Schmigadoon! winning at least six of the twelve nominated categories;
Two Strangers Carry a Cake Across New York winning two of the eight nominations;
The Rocky Horror Show securing one of their nine nominations.
We expect Lost Boys, Cats: The Jellicle Ball, Chess, and perhaps Ragtime to provide the winners against the three musicals we saw.
As always, a visit to New York is exhilarating and exhausting in equal measure but we enjoyed the tree shows we saw and wish we had time to see some of the other nominees, but we look forward to hearing how their judging panels see it on 7 June.
Nick Wayne