Tony Award predictions 2026: Schmigadoon vs. The Lost Boys

There is one upside to this awfully iffy season on Broadway. And it’s that we get an especially cutthroat Tony Awards on Sunday night.Whereas last year “Maybe Happy Ending” and “Sunset Boulevard” were shoo-ins for their prizes, our current lack of obvious commercial hits or widespread consensus on shows’ artistic merit means there are a lot of hard-to-call races.This ain’t the Oscars.

There is a tiny pool of about 850 Tony voters, some of whom wind up not voting at all.So, in years like 2026, a handful of people can make a huge difference. There could be upsets galore!Here’s who I think will have a good night at Radio City Music Hall.

But even the favorites shouldn’t get too comfortable.   Hitting up show parties the past few weeks, I asked many people who they’re voting for and who’s winning.Most of the time I heard “Schmigadoon,” the parody of Golden Age musicals based on the canceled Apple TV+ show.

Of course, they usually said so with the shrugging tone of, “Let’s just have pasta.”I get it.During one of the roughest seasons for new musicals in recent memory, “Schmigadoon” offers a comfort-food familiarity because, of course, it’s mocking old shows.

It looks like your typical Broadway musical.An $8 jar of Rao’s marinara.“Lost Boys” fans are more effusive, lauding its spirit of fun and ambition.

A lot of people have voted for “Lost Boys.”Could the high-flying vampire spectacle put a stake in the corny heart of “Schmigadoon”? Not impossible.I’d sure like it to.

But all signs point to that piece of “Schmig.”It’s exceedingly rare for a closed new play to win the Tony.Outside of the unusual COVID-era ceremonies, you have to go back to Tom Stoppard’s “The Coast of Utopia” in 2007 to find one.“Liberation,” Bess Wohl’s dramedy about a 1970s Women’s Lib group, which played its last performance in February, will buck the trend.

Everybody knows it’s better written than its closest compet...