Many Hollywood stars will compete at the Tony Awards® after earning their first Tony® nominations this year. First-time nominees include Sadie Sink (Stranger Things), Emmy® winner Sarah Snook (Succession), and Oscar® winner George Clooney (Syriana).

Meanwhile, Broadway legend Audra McDonald earned a record-breaking 11 Tony® nominations. She claimed the record for most acting awards at the Tonys® in 2014 with Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar and Grill and could now win for the SEVENTH time with Gypsy.

The 78th Tony Awards® will take place at 8 pm ET on Sunday, June 8, at Radio City Music Hall in New York City. Viewers in the U.S. can watch the program live on CBS or Paramount+ with Showtime.

There’s even more than usual at the Tonys® to excite cinema lovers. One of the nominees is a friend of CreativeFuture, Chris Gattelli – who traveled to D.C. with us as part of the creative team from Wonka!

Here’s everything else you need to know to enjoy the show!

Host

The host for this year’s awards ceremony is a star of stage and screen, Tony Award®-winning actress Cynthia Erivo. Erivo won a Lead Actress Tony® for portraying Celie in The Color Purple in 2016. She and her fellow cast members won the GRAMMY® for Best Musical Theater Album in 2017.

Erivo’s film and television credits include Bad Times at the El Royale, an Aretha Franklin docuseries for Genius, and Disney’s live-action Pinocchio. Erivo earned Lead Actress Academy Award® nominations for portraying Harriet Tubman in Harriet in 2020 and for playing Elphaba in Wicked in 2024.

Guests of Honor

Recipients of Special Tony Awards® were announced ahead of time. They will be honored during the ceremony.

This year’s Special Tony Award® for Lifetime Achievement in the Theatre will go to Broadway writer and actor Harvey Fierstein. Fierstein wrote and starred in Torch Song Trilogy, winning Tonys® for Lead Actor and Best Play in 1983. The following year, he won the Tony® for Book of a Musical with La Cage aux Folles. His performance in Hairspray as Edna Turnblad, the role played by John Travolta in the film adaptation, earned Fierstein a second Lead Actor Tony® in 2003. Kinky Boots, for which Fierstein wrote the book, won the Best Musical Tony® in 2013.

Other Special Tony Awards® will be presented to the visual effects team for Stranger Things: The First Shadow and to the band members for Buena Vista Social Club. The stage adaptation of the hit television series Stranger Things is under consideration for five regular awards, including Best Actor (Louis McCartney). Buena Vista Social Club is under consideration for 10 regular awards including Best Musical, so you will hear more about it below!

Nominees

Nominees for 26 awards, separated into categories for musicals and plays, were announced on May 1, 2025.

The most nominated musicals were Buena Vista Social Club, Death Becomes Her, and Maybe Happy Ending at 10 nominations apiece. They are all contenders for Best Musical, alongside Dead Outlaw (seven nominations) and Operation Mincemeat: A New Musical (four nominations).

The most nominated plays were The Hills of California (seven nominations), John Proctor Is the Villain (seven nominations), Purpose (six nominations), and The Picture of Dorian Gray (six nominations). The first three will compete for Best Play, alongside English (five nominations) and Oh, Mary! (five nominations).

We’ll tell you a bit about the three most nominated musicals and the four most nominated plays, since Purpose and The Picture of Dorian Gray tied for third place among the plays.

Musicals

The new musical Buena Vista Social Club gives a lightly fictionalized backstory to the globe-shaking album Buena Vista Social Club, which won a GRAMMY® in 1997. Lead singer Omara (Isa Antonetti) and her bandmates perform for enthusiastic crowds in Havana until their favorite venue shuts down following the Cuban Revolution in the late 1950s. Forty years later, Omara (Natalie Venetia Belcon) reunites the band – and rekindles a romance with fellow singer Ibrahim (Mel Semé).

In addition to Best Musical, Buena Vista Social Club earned nominations for Director (Saheem Ali), Featured Actress (Natalie Venetia Belcon), Book of a Musical (Marco Ramirez), Orchestrations (Marco Paguia), Choreography (Patricia Delgado and Justin Peck), Costume Design (Dede Ayite), Scenic Design (Arnulfo Maldonado), Sound Design (Jonathan Deans), and Lighting Design (Tyler Micoleau).

Death Becomes Her transforms the beloved Academy Award®-winning film of the same name into a Broadway musical. After writer Helen Sharp (Jennifer Simard) and actress Madeline Ashton (Megan Hilty) drink a magical potion, the sometime friends, sometime rivals take revenge against each other over and over in an ageless, deathless, but still rancorous co-existence. As potion mistress Viola Van Horn (Michelle Williams) sings in one of the raucous musical numbers, “Don’t Say I Didn’t Warn You!”

In addition to Best Musical, Death Becomes Her earned nominations for Director (Christopher Gattelli), Book of a Musical (Marco Pennette), Original Score (Julia Mattinson and Noel Carey), Choreography (Christopher Gattelli), Costume Design (Paul Tazewell), Scenic Design (Derek McLane), and Lighting Design (Justin Townsend), as well as two nominations for Lead Actress (Megan Hilty and Jennifer Simard).

Can a robot learn to love? It’s not just a question for philosophers, coders, and futurists thanks to Maybe Happy Ending. Oliver (Darren Criss) and Claire (Helen J. Shen), two obsolete androids, rediscover a sense of purpose as they develop feelings beyond what their programmers intended. The unlikely couple might even find their way to a happy ending.

In addition to Best Musical, Maybe Happy Ending earned nominations for Director (Michael Arden), Lead Actor (Darren Criss), Book of a Musical (Will Aronson and Hue Park), Original Score (Will Aronson and Hue Park), Orchestrations (Will Aronson), Sound Design (Peter Hylenski), Costume Design (Clint Ramos), Scenic Design (Dane Laffrey and George Reeve), and Lighting Design (Ben Stanton).

Plays

The Hills of California is the latest play by Jez Butterworth, and it once again stars his life partner, Laura Donnelly. In scenes set in different decades, Donnelly plays both Veronica, a mother who wants her daughters to become a famous singing group, and Veronica’s estranged adult daughter, Joan. As Veronica faces her final days, Joan returns to England from California. Once reunited, Joan and her sisters make discoveries that could forever change their attitudes toward their mother.

Besides Best Play, The Hills of California earned nominations for Director (Sam Mendes), Lead Actress (Laura Donnelly), Costume Design (Rob Howell), Scenic Design (Rob Howell), Lighting Design (Natasha Shivers), and Sound Design (Nick Powell).

If you had to read Arthur Miller’s The Crucible in your high school English class, then you may have been expected to take a favorable or at least sympathetic view of John Proctor, as Kimberly Belflower was in Appalachia, Georgia. She wrote John Proctor Is the Villain to challenge such attitudes toward the character, whose secret sexual relationship with a teenage girl fuels the Salem witch trials. In Belflower’s play, Shelby Holcomb (Sadie Sink) and her fellow high school students undertake their own study of The Crucible, when news of a local sex scandal breaks.

Besides Best Play, John Proctor Is the Villain earned nominations for Director (Danya Taymor), Lead Actress (Sadie Sink), Featured Actor (Gabriel Ebert), Featured Actress (Fina Strazza), Lighting Design (Natasha Katz and Hannah Wasileski), and Sound Design (Palmer Hefferan).

All is not what it seems at the home of Solomon “Sonny” Jasper (Harry Lennix), the former civil rights leader at the center of Purpose by Branden Jacobs-Jenkins. Sonny and his wife, Claudine (LaTanya Richardson Jackson), have a reputation to uphold, but it is threatened by dinner guests including not only a new acquaintance (Kara Young) but also their own sons (Glenn Davis and Jon Michael Hill).

Purpose already won the 2025 Pulitzer Prize for Drama. Now, it could win Tony Awards® for Best Play, Lead Actor (either Jon Michael Hill or Harry Lennix), Lead Actress (LaTanya Richardson Jackson), Featured Actor (Glenn Davis), and Featured Actress (Kara Young).

In The Picture of Dorian Gray, artist Basil Hallward (Sarah Snook) paints a magical portrait of Dorian Gray (also Sarah Snook). The portrait, not Dorian, pays the tolls of time and vice as Dorian falls under the corrupting influence of Lord Henry Wotton (Sarah Snook again). As you can already see, Snook plays multiple roles in Kip Williams’ adaptation of Oscar Wilde’s novel. Indeed, Snook’s full role count in this astounding one-woman show is 26!

The Picture of Dorian Gray earned nominations for Director (Kip Williams), Lead Actress (Sarah Snook), Costume Design (Marg Horwell), Scenic Design (Marg Horwell and David Bergman), Lighting Design (Nick Schlieper), and Sound Design (Clemence Williams).

Break a Leg!

We hope you’re as excited as we are about this Broadway season! Happily, even after the Tony Awards® ceremony is over, there are more film/theater crossovers to look forward to.

For a major example, just take a look at the newly released trailer for Wicked: For Good, featuring 2025 Tony Awards® host Cynthia Erivo:

We are eager to discover who will win awards on June 8, but every nomination is a high honor. Congratulations to all those nominated for Tonys® in 2025!

Since you’re never supposed to wish someone “good luck” in show business, please join us as we honor theater tradition by saying, “Break a leg!”