Complete 2025 Tony Award Predictions

Time Out

2 days ago

The unusually bountiful 2024–25 Broadway season has spoiled us for choice. Deciding how to vote for the Tony Awards will be harder than it has been in a long time: Even more than usual, this year's ballot requires Tony voters to make wrenching decisions among candidates who are manifestly deserving. That, in turn, makes it hard for Tony pundits to predict all the winners with confidence. Still, even so, nonetheless: We have studied the 2025 Tony nominations, kept an ear cocked for buzz and talked to a multitude of voters, and now we are ready to make our final calls. Remember: These are our predictions, not our choices, and we are fully prepared—in some cases, even hopeful!—for the possibility that we may be guessing wrong. Here's who we think will win when Cynthia Erivo host Broadway's biggest night on June 8, 2025.
BEST MUSICAL
Buena Vista Social Club
Dead Outlaw
Death Becomes Her Maybe Happy Ending
Operation Mincemeat
The race: The field of contenders for the Tony Awards' marquee prize was notably deep this year: 14 new musicals, most of them good. Several shows that might have been shoo-ins for nominations in other years, such as Real Women Have Curves, didn't end up making the cut. Of the five that did, three are intimately scaled—which is not necessarily a handicap in this category, which has trended in recent years toward smaller, artier musicals. Support this season appears to have consolidated behind the lovely and original android romance Maybe Happy Ending; while a happy ending for the production is not guaranteed, its odds put it closer to will be than maybe.
BEST PLAY
The race: Another embarassment of riches: Two of the nominees, Purpose and English, have won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama. Of those two, the still-running Purpose has an edge. But the suprise hit of the year is Cole Escola's riotously funny Oh, Mary!, which has fancy credentials of its own—it was a runner-up to Purpose for the Pulitzer—and has generated huge buzz beyond the usual theater circles. Nothing like it has ever won Best Play, which tends to reward more serious fare; but on the other hand, the Best Play winner is strongly correlated to the winner of Best Director of a Play—they've gone together 17 out of 24 times in this century—and Purpose isn't nominated for the latter. (Only once in the 21st century has a new play whose director wasn't nominated beaten one whose director was; the winning play was 2002's The Goat, or Who Is Sylvia?, Edward Albee's first new Broadway work since 1975 to run for more than two weeks.) We predict that the sheer joy of Escola's show will carry the day.
BEST REVIVAL OF A MUSICAL
The race: Recent momentum for Audra McDonald (see below) has helped Gypsy 's chances, but this parade is still scheduled for Sunset Blvd. Gypsy is the better musical, but Jamie Lloyd's production of Sunset is the bolder reinvention. And the absence of Gypsy director George C. Wolfe from this category is a powerful indicator, too, albeit with an asterisk: In the years since awards for revivals were introduced in 1977, only one musical revival whose eligible director wasn't nominated has ever beaten one whose director was—but that one winning revival was Gypsy! Then again, that was in 1990, and neither of the show's two revivals since then wound up taking the prize. Sunset has the upper hand.
BEST REVIVAL OF A PLAY
The race: The neck-and-neck race between David Henry Hwang's Yellow Face and Jonathan Spector's Eureka Day makes this one nearly impossible to call. Eureka Day has the advantages of being both newer (it premiered in 2018, so it feels more like an original play than a revival) and more recent, having closed in February versus Yellow Face 's November. But Yellow Face was recorded for PBS and broadcast in May, which evens that field somewhat. It's a true coin toss of a category, but we predict that Yellow Face will win the day—or even that the race will yield a rare Tony tie.
BEST BOOK OF A MUSICAL
Buena Vista Social Club by Marco Ramirez
Dead Outlaw by Itamar Moses
Death Becomes He r by Marco Pennette
Maybe Happy Ending by Will Aronson and Hue Park
Operation Mincemeat by David Cumming, Felix Hagan, Natasha Hodgson and Zoë Roberts
The race: For musicals, though not for plays, the Tonys draw a distinction between the sum of a production's parts (Best Musical) and its writing, both nonmusical (Best Book) and musical (Best Score). Not infrequently, especially when the big winner is large production, one or both writing awards will go elsewhere, as they did last year to Shaina Taub's Suffs. This year, though, we suspect that voters won't see as much need for distinction. Will Aronson and Hue Park's storytelling in Maybe Happy Ending is the most charming and emotionally resonant of the nominees; and while Dead Outlaw and Operation Mincemeat adopt less conventional narrative strategies, they are both inspired by historical events, which helps the entirely original Maybe Happy Ending stand out.
BEST SCORE
Dead Outlaw by David Yazbek and Erik Della Penna
Death Becomes Her by Julia Mattison and Noel Carey
Maybe Happy Ending by Will Aronson and Hue Park
Operation Mincemeat by David Cumming, Felix Hagan, Natasha Hodgson and Zoë Roberts
Real Women Have Curves by Joy Huerta and Benjamin Velez
The race: If Dead Outlaw picks up an award, it is most likely to be for David Yazbek and Erik Della Penna's smart and eclectic score, which not only suits the show perfectly but is also highly enjoyable as a cast recording. But the show—which tracks a corpse through decades of American history—is probably a skosh too weird for Tony voters. We think Maybe Happy Ending will add this award to its haul.
BEST ACTRESS IN A MUSICAL
Megan Hilty, Death Becomes Her
Audra McDonald, Gypsy
Jasmine Amy Rogers, Boop! The Musical
Nicole Scherzinger, Sunset Blvd.
Jennifer Simard, Death Becomes Her
The race: This has been the race to watch all year: a gladiator match of champions. This season was so flush with Best Actress contenders that Sutton Foster and Idina Menzel didn't even get nominated; neither did Maybe Happy Ending 's adorable Helen J Shen. Since the fall, the assumption has been that the race would come down to a diva showdown between Audra's Mama Rose and Scherzinger's Norma Desmond, with the latter at a slight advantage because a) everyone agrees that Audra is acting the hell out of her part but not everyone thinks her voice always works for the part, and b) she has six Tonys already. But then came Jasmine Amy Rogers in Boop!, delivering the kind of starmaking performance that voters love to reward. (That doesn't leave much room for the wonderful co-stars of Death Becomes Her, who in a different year would be leading the pack.) As recently as two weeks ago, we would have predicted a Scherzinger win, with Rogers as a dark horse. But the fallout from LuPonedemonium, which reminded people not to take Audra for granted, has shifted the balance; to a lesser extent, so has sympathy over Boop! 's exclusion from the Tonys. What that means is that the night's most exciting race is back to being anyone's guess—and our guess, since we have to make one, is that Audra will need to find a bit more room on her mantel.
BEST ACTOR IN A MUSICAL
Darren Criss, Maybe Happy Ending Andrew Durand, Dead Outlaw
Tom Francis, Sunset Blvd. Jonathan Groff, Just in Time James Monroe Iglehart, A Wonderful World
Jeremy Jordan, Floyd Collins
The race: There are six very worthy nominees here instead of five—the result of a tie in the nominating process—but the general feeling is that it will come down to Darren Criss and Jonathan Groff. Both are very well-liked, and both are giving first-rate performances. If Groff hadn't won last year for Merrily We Roll Along, he would probably be the favorite for his splashier turn as Bobby Darin in Just in Time. But he did win last year, and back-to-back acting victories in the same category are extremely rare: Only Gwen Verdon (1958 and 1959) and Judith Light (2012 and 2013) have pulled it off. We think that tips the odds slightly toward Criss.
BEST ACTRESS IN A PLAY
Laura Donnelly, The Hills of California
Mia Farrow, The Roommate
LaTanya Richardson Jackson, Purpose
Sadie Sink, John Proctor Is the Villain
Sarah Snook, The Picture of Dorian Gray
The race: Finally, an easy call! Snook's one-woman, two-dozen-character walk on the Wilde side is the kind of athletic and chameleonic tour de force that voters have a hard time resisting. And they won't. Trust her with your valuables, 'cause Snook is a lock.
BEST ACTOR IN A PLAY
George Clooney, Good Night, and Good Luck
Cole Escola, Oh, Mary! Jon Michael Hill, Purpose
Daniel Dae Kim, Yellow Face Henry Lennix, Purpose
Louis McCartney, Stranger Things: The First Shadow
The race: Escola is nonbinary, and had they chosen to compete in the Best Actress category then Snook might have gotten a run for her money. Competing instead for Best Actor, Escola is likely to win with ease for their dazzling and hilarious turn as the quite contrary Mary Todd Lincoln.
BEST FEATURED ACTRESS IN A MUSICAL
Natalie Venetia Belcon, Buena Vista Social Club Julia Knitel, Dead Outlaw
Gracie Lawrence, Just in Time
Justina Machado, Real Women Have Curves Joy Woods, Gypsy
The race: The consensus for some time has been that Belcon will win this award for her very fine work as an imperious singer in Buena Vista Social Club. That may well be exactly what happens. But there are usually a few upsets up the Tonys' sleeve, and they're often in the featured categories. Many people feel that Real Women Have Curves got a raw deal from the nominators, and this category is where voters have a chance to show it a little love by voting for Justina Machado, the comic dynamo who is the show's big, beating heart.
Brooks Ashmanskas, Smash Jeb Brown, Dead Outlaw
Danny Burstein, Gypsy Jak Malone, Operation Mincemeat Taylor Trensch, Floyd Collins
The race: Jak Malone has the takeaway number in Operation Mincemeat —an oasis of sincerity in that show's hectic whirlwind—so he remains the odds-on favorite. But his support is a little soft; some voters admire the performance but think the song itself does a lot of the work. That opens up a possible window for the hilarious Brooks Ashmanskas, who brings gale force to a role that plays like a culmination of his decades of character comedy, or the widely adored Danny Burstein, who everyone agrees is perfect as Gypsy 's long-suffering Herbie.
BEST FEATURED ACTRESS IN A PLAY
Tala Ashe, English
Jessica Hecht, Eureka Day
Marjan Neshat, English Fina Strazza, John Proctor Is the Villain Kara Young, Purpose
The race: This is another of the night's closest races, and it's Hecht and Young at the finish line. Young is spectacularly gifted; she's been nominated in this category for four straight seasons, and won it just last year. If any actor can pull off back-to-back wins, she's a good candidate, and it doesn't hurt that a win for Young would also be a win for Purpose, which might come up empty in other races. But Hecht is a pillar of New York theater whose big scene at the end of Eureka Day was unforgettable, and who has somehow never won a Tony. We suspect that admiration for Hecht's hitherto-underrewarded career will tip the scale slightly in her favor.
BEST FEATURED ACTOR IN A PLAY
Glenn Davis, Purpose
Gabriel Ebert, John Proctor Is the Villain Francis Jue, Yellow Face Bob Odenkirk, Glengarry Glen Ross Conrad Ricamora, Oh, Mary!
The race: Like Hecht, Frances Jue is a beloved industry veteran whose work in Yellow Face was among the best in his long career. But this category has a complicating factor that hers doesn't: Voters tend to pad Best Play victories with other awards, and there aren't many ways to do that for Oh, Mary! We think Ricamora will ride that wave to glory.
BEST DIRECTION OF A MUSICAL
Saheem Ali, Buena Vista Social Club
Michael Arden, Maybe Happy Ending
David Cromer, Dead Outlaw Christopher Gattelli, Death Becomes Her Jamie Lloyd, Sunset Blvd.
The race: The likely winners of Best Musical and Best Musical Revival will probably face off in this category, as they often do; Best Musical directors are unlikely to lose to directors of other new musicals. (In the past 30 years, that's only happened to the serially underappreciated Michael Greif. Twice.) Between Arden and Lloyd, Arden has the advantage; not everyone likes the kind of metatheatrical multimedia staging that Lloyd's Sunset Blvd. represents.
BEST DIRECTION OF A PLAY
Knud Adams, English Sam Mendes, The Hills of California
Sam Pinkleton, Oh, Mary! Danya Taymor, John Proctor Is the Villain
Kip Williams, The Picture of Dorian Gray
The race: As noted above, a Best Play victory usually also entails one for Best Director. That points to a win for Sam Pinkleton's expert navigation of Oh, Mary! 's pace and tone. Kip Williams's complicated vision of Dorian Gray also has admirers, but Pinkleton's closest competition is Taymor, whose win would honor the popular but probably otherwise overlooked John Proctor Is the Villain.
BEST CHOREOGRAPHY
The race: Justin Peck won last year for Illinoise, and he's likely to repeat the feat for the beautiful and dynamic dances he created with his wife, Patricia Delgado, for Buena Vista Social Club. But there's considerable support out there for Jerry Mitchell's exuberant work in Boop!, and while Christopher Gattelli is unlikely to win for directing Death Becomes Her, his choreo may earn him a consolation prize.
BEST
ORCHESTRATIONS
Will Aronson, Maybe Happy Ending Bruce Coughlin, Floyd Collins
David Cullen and Andrew Lloyd Webber, Sunset Blvd. Marco Paguia, Buena Vista Social Club
Andrew Resnick and Michael Thurber, Just in Time
The race: Buena Vista Social Club is literally about the band, and although the show's superb onstage musicians are already receiving a Special Tony Award for their contributions, the voters' goodwill seems likely to overflow into this category as well. (Just in Time also has an onstage orchestra, though, so it has an outside chance.)
BEST SCENIC DESIGN OF A MUSICAL
Rachel Hauck, Swept Away
Dane Laffrey and George Reeve, Maybe Happy Ending Arnulfo Maldonado, Buena Vista Social Club Derek McLane, Death Becomes Her
Derek McLane, Just in Time
The race: Laffrey's longtime creative partnership with director Michael Arden has been a major factor in Arden's success, and nowhere more clearly than in Maybe Happy Ending, in which the set design is almost a fifth character. McLane's double nomination might be a Pyrrhic victory: Those who favor his big, gleaming designs might divide their vote, further facilitating Laffrey's win.
BEST SCENIC DESIGN OF A PLAY
Miriam Buether and 59 (Benjamin Pearcy and Leo Warner), Stranger Things: The First Shadow Marsha Ginsberg, English
Marg Horwell and David Bergman, The Picture of Dorian Gray
Rob Howell, The Hills of California Scott Pask, Good Night, and Good Luck
The race: Stranger Things may not impress everyone as a drama, but there's no denying it's a majestic spectacle. The set is a huge—and we mean huge—part of that. There's a shipwreck onstage! It's going to win.
BEST COSTUME DESIGN OF A MUSICAL
Dede Ayite, Buena Vista Social Club
Gregg Barnes, Boop! The Musical Clint Ramos, Maybe Happy Ending Paul Tazewell, Death Becomes Her Catherine Zuber, Just in Time
The race: It's been a triumphant year for Paul Tazewell, who won an Oscar in March for Wicked and whose wild ensembles are among Death Becomes Her 's most memorable elements. His main competition in this category is fellow ten-time Tony nominee Gregg Barnes, whose costumes for Boop! are equally spectacular in eye-popping color and in shades of black and white. Barnes has won more often and more recently, though, and this category is the most obvious place to reward Death Becomes Her 's over-the-top style.
BEST COSTUME DESIGN OF A PLAY
Brenda Abbandandolo, Good Night, and Good Luck Marg Horwell, The Picture of Dorian Gray
Rob Howell, The Hills of California
Holly Pierson, Oh, Mary! Brigitte Reiffenstuel, Stranger Things: The First Shadow
The race: The Stranger Things design juggernaut probably won't extend to this race, where voters are more likely to be torn between Pierson's deliberately simplistic, paper-doll designs for Oh, Mary! and Horwell's equally deliberately ornate ones for The Picture of Dorian Gray. If Oh, Mary! wins in this early category, it will be a good sign that it's headed for a sweep. But we think this one lands in the Gray zone.
BEST LIGHTING DESIGN OF A MUSICAL
Jack Knowles, Sunset Blvd. Tyler Micoleau, Buena Vista Social Club Ben Stanton, Maybe Happy Ending
Justin Townsend, Death Becomes Her Scott Zielinski and Ruey Horng Sun, Floyd Collins
The race: Best Lighting is often Most Lighting, where voters are concerned, and Sunset Blvd. undeniably has the most lighting of these five. It's also highly accomplished on a technical level, and central to the production's aesthetic.
BEST LIGHTING DESIGN OF A PLAY
Natasha Chivers, The Hills of California
Jon Clark, Stranger Things: The First Shadow Heather Gilbert and David Bengali, Good Night, and Good Luck
Natasha Katz and Hannah Wasileski, John Proctor Is the Villain
Nick Schlieper, The Picture of Dorian Gray The race: Again: Most Lighting. Stranger Things has more lighting than the other four combined. If the voters are feeling rebellious, however, this could be where John Proctor sneaks in.
BEST SOUND DESIGN OF A MUSICAL
Jonathan Deans, Buena Vista Social Club Adam Fisher, Sunset Blvd. Peter Hylenski, Death Becomes Her
Peter Hylenski, Just in Time Dan Moses Schreier, Floyd Collins
The race: We think this is ultimately a race between Sunset Blvd.'s well-executed blare and Buena Vista Social Club 's more organic approach, which renders the music with exceptional clarity. We give Sunset a slight edge.
Paul Arditti, Stranger Things: The First Shadow
Palmer Hefferan, John Proctor Is the Villain
Daniel Kluger, Good Night and Good Luck Nick Powell, The Hills of California Clemence Williams, The Picture of Dorian Gray
The race: This is another race where Stranger Things will probably happen. But sound arguments do exist for an upset by, say, John Proctor Is the Villain or The Picture of Dorian Gray.
Special Tony Awards for Lifetime Achievement (noncompetitive)
Harvey Fierstein
Isabella Stevenson Award (noncompetitive)
Celia Keenan-Bolger
Special Tony Awards (noncompetitive)
The band of Buena Vista Social Club
The illusions and technical effects of Stranger Things: The First Shadow
Regional Theatre Tony Award (noncompetitive)
The Muny (Municipal Theatre Association of St. Louis)
Honors for Excellence in the Theatre (noncompetitive)
Robert Fried
Great Performances
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