Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman won six Tony Awards on Sunday, finishing the 2026 Tony Awards as the night’s biggest winner. The revival’s haul put Joe Mantello at the center of the ceremony after he won best direction for the production, which came in with heavy attention and left with the clearest result of the evening.
That mattered because the race had been tight before the first trophy was handed out. Schmigadoon! and The Lost Boys entered the night tied for the most nominations with 12 each, while Cats: The Jellicle Ball arrived with nine. By the end of the ceremony, though, the spotlight had shifted: Schmigadoon!, The Lost Boys and Ragtime each finished with four Tony Awards, and Ragtime took best musical revival while Schmigadoon! won best musical.
The 79th annual Tony Awards unfolded at Radio City Music Hall, with Pink hosting the main ceremony on CBS and Paramount+. The first batch of awards was handed out earlier in the Act One preshow, hosted by Laura Benanti and Tituss Burgess, while the broadcast also made room for performances marking the anniversaries of The Book of Mormon, Chicago and A Chorus Line.
Death of a Salesman’s win total also underlined how sharply the night turned on individual categories. The revival was a Scott Rudin-produced production starring Nathan Lane, Laurie Metcalf and Christopher Abbott, and its six wins put it ahead of the field even as several other shows piled up major prizes of their own. Liberation won best play, and Cats: The Jellicle Ball picked up three awards, but neither could match the sheer breadth of Mantello’s production.
The evening left one central answer and one lingering question. The winner’s circle belonged to Death of a Salesman, and the broader field was more evenly split than the nominations suggested. What remains most useful now is the breakdown of where those six wins landed — a detail that shows whether the revival surged across performance, design or direction, and why it was Mantello’s show that carried the night.
