May 15, 2026: Theatre Yesterday and Today, by Ron Fassler

Now that the 2026 Tony Awards nominations have been announced and campaigning is in full swing, as usual, I can’t get enough of it. My obsession began in 1967 when, at age ten, I viewed the first nationally televised ceremony on ABC, which aired in a one-hour time slot that presented the awards in all 16 categories (today there are 26 of them, with only about half that number handed out live in the now three-hour broadcast). In addition to numbers from the 4 nominated musicals, the show opened, naturally, with Joel Grey and company performing “Willkommen” from Cabaret, the evening’s eventual big winner with 8 awards. The hosts chosen for this historic event were Mary Martin and Robert Preston, then headlining that season’s hit musical I Do! I Do!, the first Broadway show I ever saw. The hope was that Preston and Martin’s star power would bring in the required ratings for what was truly an experiment. Sure, excerpts from the nominated musicals would make for good viewing, but with most of the trophies not expected to go to household names, would there be any interest? As just two examples, British actors, Paul Rogers (The Homecoming) and Beryl Reid (The Killing of Sister George), unfamiliar to most American audiences, took home Best Actor and Actress in a Play. To compensate, Alexander H. Cohen, the theatrical impresario who produced the show, made sure that if the winners weren’t famous faces, the presenters would be: Thus, Carol Burnett, Kirk Douglas, Lauren Bacall, Zero Mostel and Barbra Streisand (all with appropriate theatrical lineages), were on hand to give out the awards. The show was well-reviewed and got respectable ratings, with the effect of the broadcast changing the lifeblood of the theatre forever forward. Harold Pinter’s The Homecoming, which was awarded Best Play, had been doing poor business up to that point and even posted a closing notice. After the Tonys, the box office take tripled and it ran an additional seven months.

It’s astonishing that 14 out of 16 awards were presented on air that night, even if the show did go 8 minutes over its allotted time, plus 4 full musical numbers performed, all in 68 minutes—with commercials! If you’re wondering how that was possible, for one thing, the speeches were crazy short. Marian Seldes spoke just one sentence that lasted all of 6 seconds: “I have this prize because Edward Albee wrote the part.” Robert Preston’s speech clocked in at 7 seconds.

According to the next day’s New York Times, the home audience in 1967 was estimated at 40 million viewers (2025’s three-hour broadcast had 5.1 million).

With seventy-eight years of the Tonys behind us now, it’s interesting to note who currently holds records in the acting categories. Boyd Gaines and Frank Langella are the only males to win 4 Tonys for acting—an impressive statistic. Gaines won his in under a twenty year-period while Langella’s were spread out over twice as long (he was seventy-eight when he won for The Father in 2016). It’s possible that Nathan Lane will soon join Gaines and Langella in the four-timers club if he takes home a Tony for Death of a Salesman, adding to those he’s already received for A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum (1996), The Producers (2001), and Angels in America (2018). Of the ladies, Audra McDonald has 6 competitive Tonys out of a record-breaking 11 nominations (all won between the ages of twenty-three and forty-three, which is . . . I don’t know what that is).

McDonald holds yet another unique distinction in that she has won in all 4 acting categories—the only person to do so (Best Actress in a Play and Musical singularly, and twice for Best Featured Actress in a Play and Musical). Mention should also be made of such seasoned pros as Bernadette Peters with 7 nominations (and 2 wins, Song and Dance and Annie Get Your Gun), and Patti LuPone with 8 nominations and 3 wins for Evita (1980), Gypsy (2008), Company (2021). And how about the first person to win 4 Tonys—Gwen Verdon—who did it in a frenzy of musicals in just 5 years? Her wins came for Can-Can (1954), Damn Yankees (1956), New Girl in Town (1958), and Redhead (1959). Yowza!

The first to best Verdon’s haul was Julie Harris, later joined by Angela Lansbury, with 5 competitive wins. Lansbury’s coming in 2009, meant that it wasn’t until 4 years later that McDonald would catch up to these two ladies with Tony #5 (she won #6 in 2014). Harris, who was bestowed a 6th Tony in 2002 for Lifetime Achievement, is now tied for second behind McDonald with 10 nominations. Also with 10, is Chita Rivera who, in addition to her 2 competitive Tonys for The Rink and Kiss of the Spider Woman, is also a Lifetime Achievement Tony recipient, presented to her in 2018. Here’s to the ladies.

Until 2 weeks ago, it was a tie for the actor with the most nominations (8), a record held by Jason Robards for so many years that his last nomination was in 1978 (he died in 2000). Winning only once as Best Actor in a Play for The Disenchanted (1959), Robards has now been surpassed by Danny Burstein, who just received his 9th nomination for Marjorie Prime as Featured Actor in a Play (he won in 2020 for Moulin Rouge). Also receiving her 9th nomination this year is Kelli O’Hara (Fallen Angels) who, with one previous win for The King and I in 2015, is on her way towards giving Audra McDonald a serious un for her money in the nominations department.

Things start to get interesting when you look at the renaissance men (as the Tonys website call them) who have managed 4 wins in as many different categories: Tommy Tune, Harvey Fierstein and South Park’s Trey Parker (who did it with one single show, The Book of Mormon).

Tommy Tune’s 4, covering an overall total of 9 wins, are Best Actor in a Musical (My One and Only); Best Featured Actor in a Musical (Seesaw); Best Choreography (A Day in Hollywood/A Night in the Ukraine, My One and Only, Grand Hotel: The Musical, and The Will Rogers Follies; and Best Director of a Musical (Nine, Grand Hotel: The Musical, and The Will Rogers Follies). He was also given a Lifetime Achievement Tony in 2015.

Another who’s spread his Tonys across 4 categories is Harvey Fierstein, who won as Best Actor (Torch Song Trilogy) and as its author when it won Best Play; Best Book of a Musical (La Cage aux Folles) and Best Actor in a Musical (Hairspray.) Not sure who else will be able to pull off Tune and Fierstein’s accomplishments across such diverse fields.

And, as mentioned, Trey Parker won his 4 on a single night for The Book of Mormon: Best Book, Best Score, Best Direction, and (as a producer) Best Musical. That record might hold for quite some time.

Though they don’t take a bow at the curtain call, there are those behind the scenes with multi-nominations and wins who deserve a standing ovation or two. In total, Santo Loquasto has amassed 20 nominations across two disciplines winning 4; costumes 3 times and once for scenic design. For the most wins in that latter category, Oliver Smith received 8 Tonys between 1958 and 1967, with My Fair Lady, West Side Story, and Hello, Dolly! among his outstanding creations. And for Costume Design, Catherine Zuber has 10 Tony wins beginning with The Light in the Piazza (2005) and on to Moulin Rouge! (2020). Her 18th nomination—so far—came last season with Just in Time. Then there’s lighting designer Jules Fisher, whose 9 Tonys started with Pippin (1973) and extended to forty years later with Lucky Guy (2013). Eighty-nine this fall, Fisher has just been voted a Lifetime Achievement Tony, which he will accept at this year’s ceremony. He has amassed a total of 24 Tony nominations and, if you roll in all his Broadway, off-Broadway, film, ballet, opera, television, and rock and roll concert tours, his total credits number more than 300 separate productions.

As a sucker for statistics, I could go on. Instead, I’ll end on a note of serendipity and appreciation for June Squib, who this year has become the oldest acting nominee in Tony history. With her Best Featured Actress in a Play nod for Jordan Harrison’s Marjorie Prime, the nomination comes 67 years after her 1959 Broadway debut in the original Gypsy, a replacement for Electra, one of the 3 strippers who sing "You Gotta Get a Gimmick." The award would make her the oldest acting winner ever. Funnily enough, the role of Marjorie was created by Lois Smith, the current record-holder as the oldest Tony winner—age 90 when she received it for Matthew López’s The Inheritance (2020).

The 79th Annual Tony Awards will air live on CBS, Sunday, June 7, 2026 from 8pm until 11pm, ET, and will also be available for streaming on Paramount+.

Ron Fassler is the author of The Show Goes On: Broadway Hirings, Firings and Replacements. For news and “Theatre Yesterday and Today”columns when they break, please subscribe.