The Tony Awards Administration Committee met for the first time during 2025-26 Broadway season to determine the eligibility status of nine Broadway productions ahead of the 2026 Tony Awards.
The productions discussed were: Call Me Izzy; Mamma Mia!; Art; Waiting for Godot; Punch; Ragtime; Liberation; Little Bear Ridge Road; and The Queen of Versailles.
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The committee made the following determinations:
Christine Sherrill will be considered eligible in the Best Lead Actress in a Musical category for their role in Mamma Mia!
Andrew Bruce and Bobby Aitken will be considered eligible in the Best Sound Design of a Musical category for their work on Mamma Mia!
ADVERTISEMENTWill Harrison will be considered eligible in the Best Lead Actor in a Play category for their role in Punch.
Leanne Pinder (Movement Director) will be considered eligible in the Best Choreography category for their work on Punch.
Caissie Levy, Brandon Uranowitz, and Joshua Henry will be considered eligible in the Best Lead Actress/Actor in a Musical category for their respective roles in Ragtime.
Adam Honoré and Donald Holder (Lighting Design) and 59 Studio (Projection Design) will be considered jointly eligible in the Best Lighting Design of a Musical category for their work on Ragtime.
Susannah Flood will be considered eligible in the Best Lead Actress in a Play category for their role in Liberation.
All other eligibility will be consistent with the opening night credits.
These decisions confirm any lingering doubts about the Tony eligibility of Mamma Mia! The current production is an extended stop of the national tour, and is mostly a replica of the original 2001 production. The Tonys set a precedent for recreations like this competing in the Musical Revival race when Roundabout Theatre Company restaged their Tony-winning 1998 revival of Cabaret in 2014. Star Alan Cumming was ineligible for nomination having already won a lead actor trophy, but the committee deemed the production eligible for Best Musical Revival and allowed any “new elements” to compete as well. The 2014 Cabaret failed to earn a revival bid, but actors Danny Burstein and Linda Emond were nominated for their featured roles.
Mamma Mia! benefits from that precedent this season as it seeks to land a nomination in Best Musical Revival, facing off against Lincoln Center Theatre’s Ragtime, the Lea Michele-led Chess, and the upcoming mountings of Cats: The Jellicle Ball and The Rocky Horror Show. All of the Mamma Mia! performers will also be eligible, since none of them were a part of the original Broadway cast.
In an interesting bit of trivia, Andrew Bruce and Bobby Aitken find themselves eligible for their original sound design of Mamma Mia! because the Tony Awards had yet to establish the sound design categories when the ABBA-inspired musical premiered in 2001. Those awards weren’t added to the lineup until the 2008 ceremony.
Elsewhere, Susannah Flood’s eligibility in Lead Actress in a Play cements that race as the toughest acting category of the year. Some pundits wondered if producers would opt to keep Flood in the featured race in order to spare her the brutal competition as a lead. Now she will enter a stacked lineup that includes stars Laurie Metcalf (Little Bear Ridge Road), Jean Smart (Call Me Izzy), Lesley Manville (Oedipus), Ayo Edibiri (Proof), Kelli O’Hara (Fallen Angels), Taraji P. Henson (Joe Turner’s Come and Gone), and June Squibb (Marjorie Prime).
Given the strong reception for Liberation within the theater industry, though, Flood should be able to edge her way into this pool of celebrities this spring.
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