Tony award winners

Best Musical (2025): This heart-tugging sci-fi rom-com secured the night’s most prestigious prize for its inventive storytelling and original score. Its five-win sweep included Best Leading Actor in a Musical for Darren Criss, plus Best Direction, Best Book, and Best Original Score.

Best Costume Design of a Musical (2025): Paul Tazewell earned the trophy for the show’s jaw-dropping, "undead" couture that allows the leading ladies to transform magically on stage. This win celebrated the visual brilliance of a production that entered the night with an impressive ten nominations.

Best Scenic Design of a Play (2025): This prequel spectacular won for its massive, state-of-the-art recreation of Hawkins and the Upside Down. It dominated the creative categories for plays, also winning Best Lighting Design, Best Sound Design, and a Special Tony Award for its groundbreaking illusions.

Best Book of a Musical (2025): This fast-paced WWII satire manages to balance "can they actually say that?" humor with a surprisingly poignant emotional core, a feat of airtight writing that explains why it secured the Tony for Best Book. While the script is the engine, Jak Malone’s standout, versatile performance—which earned him Best Featured Actor—is what truly grounds the chaos and turns a frantic West End hit into a Broadway essential.

Best Orchestrations (2025): This Cuban musical celebration isn't just about the spectacle; it’s a masterclass in how a score can feel like a living, breathing heart at the center of the theater. The production’s sweep of Best Orchestrations, Best Sound Design, and Best Choreography—anchored by Natalie Venetia Belcon’s Tony-winning performance—proves that when the music is this technically precise and soulful, you don't just hear the story, you feel the heat of it.

Best Musical (2024): This visceral adaptation of S.E. Hinton's novel took the top honor for its gritty, soul-stirring reimagining of a classic. It secured four trophies in total, including Best Direction of a Musical, Best Lighting Design, and Best Sound Design.

Best Costume Design of a Musical (2024): This lavish production secured the Tony for its intricate 1920s fashion, featuring silk-and-velvet pieces that perfectly capture the obsession and opulence of West Egg. It leans heavily into the tangible atmosphere of the Jazz Age, making the Broadway Theatre feel like a champagne-soaked party where the sets and costumes are just as vital to the story as the characters themselves.

Best Original Score (2022): While this high-energy reclamation of history is famous for its pop-concert atmosphere, the real triumph is how the production manages to give Henry VIII’s wives the final word through anthems that feel more like a stadium tour than a traditional book musical. The show’s 2022 Tony wins for its music and Best Costume Design prove that you don't need a three-hour runtime to make a massive impact, especially when you’re swapping period-accurate stays for high-fashion, crystal-encrusted armor and a microphone.

Best Choreography (2022): This bio-musical took home four Tony Awards, but the standout remains the trophy for its movement, which translates Michael Jackson's signature, gravity-defying vocabulary into a high-octane ensemble performance. Instead of a standard cradle-to-grave story, the show focuses on the rehearsal room during the 1992 Dangerous Tour, giving you a literal front-row seat to the creative friction and physical precision required to pull off those legendary steps.

Best Musical (2020/21): This opulent production dominated its year with ten total wins, including the top award for Best Musical. Its star-studded sweep included Best Leading Actor (Aaron Tveit), Best Featured Actor, Best Direction, Best Choreography, and wins for every single design and orchestration category.

Best Musical (2019): Anaïs Mitchell’s folk-opera was the titan of its season, winning eight awards including the top prize for Best Musical. It also secured wins for Best Original Score, Best Direction, Best Featured Actor, Best Scenic Design, Best Lighting, Best Sound Design, and Best Orchestrations.

Best Play (2018): This theatrical phenomenon won six awards, including the night's biggest honor for a non-musical. Its incredible world-building was further recognized with wins for Best Direction, Best Scenic Design, Best Costume Design, Best Lighting, and Best Sound Design.

Best Musical (2016): This hip-hop-infused history lesson secured 11 Tony Awards, including Best Musical, for turning a dense biography into a restless, modern pulse that hasn't slowed down since it opened. Its sweep included Best Book and Best Original Score, though the real win is how it makes the founding fathers feel less like statues and more like the flawed, driven humans you’d meet on any New York street corner.

Best Featured Actor in a Musical (2014): This high-energy adaptation brought the Cave of Wonders to life with a Tony-winning performance by James Monroe Iglehart, alongside nominations for Best Musical and Best Score. It’s a great pick for those who want the comfort of a familiar story told with the kind of pyrotechnics and massive tap-dance numbers that only a Disney budget and a Broadway crew can deliver.

Best Musical (2011): This comedy juggernaut swept the board with nine wins, including the coveted Best Musical title. It also won for Best Book, Best Original Score, Best Direction, Best Featured Actress, Best Scenic Design, Best Lighting, Best Sound Design, and Best Orchestrations.

Best Scenic Design (2004): While it’s now a global phenomenon, this origin story of Oz’s famous witches secured its legacy through its massive, mechanical scenic design and an iconic Best Actress win for Idina Menzel. The production also took home the trophy for Best Costume Design, and for good reason—seeing the architectural, avant-garde details of the citizens of Oz in person makes the Gershwin Theatre feel entirely like another world.

Best Play (2001): Winning the "Triple Crown" of Best Play, Best Actress, and Best Direction wasn't just about the prestige, but a recognition of how David Auburn’s script managed to make high-level calculus feel as visceral and high-stakes as a thriller. Even decades later, the play avoids the usual "troubled genius" tropes, instead focusing on a daughter’s quiet, intense struggle to step out of her father's shadow while wondering if she’s fated to repeat his history.

Best Musical (1998): This visual masterpiece earned six Tony Awards, including Best Musical and a historic win for Julie Taymor as the first woman to win Best Direction of a Musical. More than 25 years later, the opening procession remains a defining "only in New York" moment where the puppets and actors blend into a singular, sprawling savanna that feels remarkably personal for such a large-scale show.

Best Leading Actor in a Play (2025): Cole Escola made history as the first non-binary winner in this category for their tour-de-force performance as Mary Todd Lincoln. The production also took home Best Direction of a Play for Sam Pinkleton’s brilliant staging of this madcap, revisionist comedy.

Best Musical Revival (1997): This sleek, monochromatic production took home six Tony Awards, including Best Revival and Best Choreography for its sharp, jazz-age aesthetic. It leans entirely on the precision of its Fosse-style movement and a revolving door of star-power leads, proving that the dark, cynical humor of the American justice system never actually goes out of style.