Theater kids, hold on to your butts. Bernadette Peters and Patti LuPone are performing at the 2022 Tony Awards. The glittering event has announced its lineup of performers for the June 12 ceremony, and it’s a stacked list of Broadway legends that includes the cast of Company, Billy Porter, the original cast of Spring Awakening, and more.
Musicals nominated for Best Musical and Best Revival of a Musical — A Strange Loop, Company, Girl from the North Country, MJ, Mr. Saturday Night, Music Man, Paradise Square, and SIX — will perform excerpts from their shows, which means fans will get to see performances from LuPone, Billy Crystal, Hugh Jackman, Sutton Foster, and more. Caroline, or Change, nominated for Best Revival, will not perform, likely because the show closed on January 9, 2022.
Peters, Porter, the New York City Gay Men’s Chorus, and the original cast members of the 2007 Tony Award-winning musical Spring Awakening will all be giving special performances as well.
Peters was previously announced as one of the 2022 Tonys presenters on June 7. While the Tony Awards didn’t share what she will be performing, the star is not currently in any shows and this is the first Tony Awards since Stephen Sondheim‘s death in November 2021. Peters was the leading lady in many of Sondheim’s musicals, like the original productions of Into the Woods and Sunday in the Park with George, plus revivals of Sondheim’s Gypsy, A Little Night Music, and Follies. And the two were close friends. If Peters performs a Sondheim tribute… there are not enough tissues in the world.
As if the stacked list of performers wasn’t enough, the 2022 Tony Awards presenters list assures an even more star-studded night.
Here’s the full list of actors set to appear at the ceremony: Utkarsh Ambudkar, Skylar Astin, Zach Braff, Danielle Brooks, Danny Burstein, Len Cariou, RuPaul Charles, Jessica Chastain, Lilli Cooper, Bryan Cranston, Wilson Cruz, Colman Domingo, Cynthia Erivo, Raúl Esparza, Laurence Fishburne, Andrew Garfield, Renée Elise Goldsberry, Tony Goldwyn, David Alan Grier, Vanessa Hudgens, Jennifer Hudson, Paris Jackson, LaTanya Richardson Jackson, Prince Jackson, Samuel L. Jackson, Nathan Lane, Telly Leung, Judith Light, Josh Lucas, Gaten Matarazzo, Ruthie Ann Miles, Patina Miller, Lin-Manuel Miranda, Bebe Neuwirth, Kelli O’Hara, Sarah Paulson, Peters, Jeremy Pope, Porter, Chita Rivera, Tony Shalhoub, Phillipa Soo, Sarah Silverman, George Takei, Aaron Tveit, Adrienne Warren, Patrick Wilson, and Bowen Yang.
Oscar winner and Tony nominee Ariana DeBose will host the event at Radio City Music Hall. The award show will air live on CBS and stream on Paramount+ starting at 8/7c. Emmy winners Darren Criss and Julianne Hough will host the pre-show, called The Tony Awards: Act One, starting at 7/6c, streaming exclusively on Paramount+.
The ceremony will celebrate the 2021-2022 Broadway season. Nominated actors include Jackman, Foster, Crystal, Uzo Aduba, Ron Cephas Jones, Ruth Negga, Rachel Dratch, and more. Pulitzer Prize-winning musical A Strange Loop leads the nominations with 11, and one of its stars, L Morgan Lee, has already made history as the first openly trans woman to be nominated for a Tony. Should she win Best Performance by an Actress in a Featured Role in a Musical, she’ll make history again.
And lastly, Angela Lansbury (another one of Sondheim’s leading ladies) will receive the lifetime achievement award during the ceremony. Can you believe she doesn’t already have one?
75th Annual Tony Awards, Sunday, June 12, 8/7c, CBS and Paramount+
