“I’m on top of the world,” the “Schmigadoon!” writer Cinco Paul said, clutching a Tony statuette and weaving through actors, writers and producers under Rockefeller Center at the official after-party for theater’s biggest night.
It was an evening when everyone seemed to have won something.
“Schmigadoon!,” a loving spoof of Golden Age musicals, took home four awards, including best new musical. “The Lost Boys,” a campy vampire spectacle, also won four Tonys, as did a searing revival of the American-dream musical “Ragtime.” And “Cats: The Jellicle Ball,” a joyful queer reinvention of the Andrew Lloyd Webber classic, won three of its own.
“It’s unbelievably surreal-feeling,” said Zhailon Levingston, who, with Bill Rauch, won for directing “Cats.”
“I’m thinking about the little boy who first fell in love with ‘Cats,’ what he would think,” he said.
For many, the celebration also came with a sense of relief: Daniel Radcliffe, nominated for his one-man marathon in the play “Every Brilliant Thing,” and Darren Criss, a winner last year, both said they were grateful to be able to sit back and watch rather than perform.
Others attendees were relieved they got to celebrate at all.
Ben Levi Ross, a nominee for “Ragtime,” said he was in the bathroom when it was announced that the show had won best musical revival.
“I ran in from the back of the theater and made it onstage, and that was something I’ll never forget for the rest of my life,” he said.
The gathering encompassed much of the rink level at Rockefeller Center, indoors and out, where guests snacked on miniature lobster rolls, Shake Shack hamburgers and whiskey-infused ice cream.
It was a brief but bustling stop for most. Attendees included industry veterans — the “Saturday Night Live” creator Lorne Michaels, a “Schmigadoon!” producer; and Kelli O’Hara, nominated for “Fallen Angels” — and many first-time nominees, including Sam Tutty and Christiani Pitts from “Two Strangers (Carry a Cake Across New York),” Layton Williams of the parody musical “Titaníque” and Susannah Flood from “Liberation.”
By 1 a.m., many of the nominees had left the official after-party and arrived at the Carlyle hotel on the Upper East Side, where the theater publicist Rick Miramontez and the producers John Gore and Jamie DuMont were hosting their annual late-night bash for several hundred guests.
The early arrivals included Nicole Scherzinger, the former Pussycat Doll and a Tony winner last year for “Sunset Boulevard”; the newly minted Tony winner Lesley Manville, for lead actress in a play for her performance in “Oedipus”; and the rapper Megan Thee Stallion, who recently wrapped a run on Broadway in “Moulin Rouge! The Musical.”
In a booth at the center of the room, Ali Louis Bourzgui sat next to his partner, the actress Tassy Kirbas. Bourzgui, 26, had won his first Tony Award a few hours earlier for featured actor in a musical for his performance as the vampire David in “The Lost Boys.”
When the veteran stage actor Brian Stokes Mitchell walked up to congratulate Bourzgui, the young actor’s eyes grew wide.
“I grew up listening to ‘Ragtime,’” Bourzgui said of the 1998 Broadway musical, which starred Mitchell. “So that was amazing.”
Waiters circled with shrimp cocktails, sliders, French fries and Champagne as more guests trickled in: Rose Byrne, a nominee for lead actress in a play for her role in “Fallen Angels,” and her partner, the actor Bobby Cannavale; the “Big Bang Theory” star Jim Parsons, who is starring in “Titaníque”; and a previous host, Ariana DeBose.
Cole Escola, the author of the madcap Mary Todd Lincoln play “Oh, Mary!” and last year’s winner for lead actor in a play, stood atop the stairs in a flamboyant orange halter gown, greeting a line of well-wishers. (The show, which has been running on Broadway for nearly two years, is set to begin a national tour this fall.)
“My daughter loves ‘Oh, Mary!,’ ” one woman told Escola.
“Thank you so much!” they said, smiling.
Upstairs, the actress Sarah Paulson, in a high-necked shirtdress, clutched a puppy to her chest.
“He’s not my dog,” said Paulson, who won last year’s Tony for best actress in a play, as O’Hara walked up to scratch its ears.
“He’s so cute,” O’Hara said.
As the night wore on, attendees continued to trickle into the hotel bar from the ceremony, including Mark Strong, a nominee for best lead actor in a play for “Oedipus”; JC Chasez, the former ’N Sync singer and a producer of “Titaníque”; and Joe Mantello, this year’s winner for best director of a play for “Death of a Salesman.”
In a corner booth near the bar, Radcliffe sat with his arm around his partner, the actress Erin Darke. In another, Strong chatted with Manville, who was somehow still awake after wrapping a run in her latest show, the dark comedy “Les Liaisons Dangereuses,” in London on Saturday night.
Just then, in waltzed Tom Felton, who played Harry Potter’s nemesis Draco Malfoy in the film series and is currently reprising his role as the adult version of the character in “Harry Potter and the Cursed Child” on Broadway.
He and Radcliffe hugged and posed for photos together, cracking wide grins. (Felton wasn’t eligible for a Tony Award this year because “Harry Potter and the Cursed Child” did not open during the 2025-26 Broadway season.)
Shortly afterward, as the clock ticked past 2 a.m., Radcliffe and Darke, hand in hand, slipped out the door to a waiting car. Manville followed them out, squeezing through a crowd of partygoers.
Others, though, were still going strong. Glowing red arrows in a stairwell pointed the way to an upstairs room, where an enormous Tony Award-shaped cake and a crepe station were on offer.
Through another hallway was a dance floor, where a disco ball glistened on a table behind the stage and purple spotlights cast a soft glow over a dozen people swaying to Khia’s “My Neck, My Back.”
Around 2:30 a.m., Criss took the mic at the bar to sing an improvised number, accompanied by the pianist Billy Stritch.
“Happy Tonys, everybody!” he said.
As another performer started in on Billie Holiday’s “All of Me,” he and his wife, Mia Criss, embraced and swayed to the music.
By 3 a.m., some seemed ready to call it quits as others changed into slippers.
Scherzinger fanned herself in a lacy black gown and headed for the exit, while upstairs, Megan Thee Stallion was still going strong, her head bobbing as she swayed alongside the dance floor.
“Everyone go home!” said Alex Newell, a previous Tony Award winner for “Shucked,” as they found themselves navigating the clogged passageways in a crush of partygoers.
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