The televised portion of the Tony Awards ceremony is set to begin at 8 p.m. Eastern on Sunday, broadcast live on CBS and streamed on Paramount+.
The three-hour show, which honors plays and musicals staged on Broadway, will feature more singing and less talking than usual because of a strike by the Writers Guild of America, which represents screenwriters. The two organizations that present the Tony Awards, the Broadway League and the American Theater Wing, agreed to stage a script-less broadcast so that the union would not picket the ceremony.
This year’s ceremony, the 76th Tony Awards, is unusual in another way, too: For the first time, it is taking place at the United Palace, a onetime movie theater in the Washington Heights neighborhood of Upper Manhattan.
The televised broadcast will focus on entertainment, which the theater industry hopes will inspire viewers to buy tickets to Broadway shows.
Most of the awards will be handed out before the broadcast, during a ceremony that is to start at 6:30 p.m. Eastern and to be streamed on Pluto TV, a free streaming service.
Last year, the awards for choreography, design, orchestration and score were presented during the pre-broadcast ceremony, while awards for productions, performances, direction and book were handed out during the broadcast portion. It is expected that this year will follow a similar, but not necessarily identical, structure.
This year’s contenders for best musical are “& Juliet,” “Kimberly Akimbo,” “New York, New York,” “Shucked” and “Some Like It Hot.” The contenders for best play are “Ain’t No Mo’,” “Between Riverside and Crazy,” “Cost of Living,” “Fat Ham” and “Leopoldstadt.”
