‘Liberation’ and ‘Schmigadoon!’ top Tony Awards

The ‘Schmigadoon!’ team celebrates its Best Musical win at the 79th Tony Awards

Bess Wohl’s play Liberation, a look at second-wave feminism, and musical Schmigadoon! earned the top prizes on Sunday at the 79th Tony Awards, the highest honors in American theater.

The ceremony, held at Radio City Music Hall, reflected the political climate of President Donald Trump’s America, with host Pink taking a stand in support of transgender people and freedom of expression.

The awards honored socially conscious works that explored feminism, antisemitism, and US history, and celebrated LGBTQ culture.

Liberation, which explores sexuality and the place of women in society in the 1970s, was named Best Play after winning a Pulitzer Prize in May.

Wohl is only the fourth woman to receive the honor.

The award for Best Musical went to Schmigadoon!, a humorous tribute to Broadway’s greatest hits and an adaptation of the series of the same name.

John Lithgow won Best Actor for his portrayal of Roald Dahl in Giant, and praised the play as “extraordinarily important right now.”

The play by British writer Mark Rosenblatt revisits a period in Dahl’s career after he published an essay about the 1982 Israeli siege of Beirut that was deemed antisemitic.

Another adaptation, that of Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman, won six awards, more than any other work. Among them were Best Revival of a Play and Best Supporting Actress for Laurie Metcalf, known for her role in the series Roseanne.

Theater remains a hit with New York audiences, with 14.6 million tickets sold during the 2025–2026 season and bringing in $1.9 billion in gross revenue, according to the Broadway League, the industry’s leading trade association. — AFP, Raphaëlle Peltier