Audra McDonald Receives 2026 Tony Nomination; Production to be Announced

by Jake Alexander.

Original photo by Heather Gershonowitz.

NEW YORK, NY - Audra McDonald has already been announced as a 2026 Tony Nominee for her performance in “Show TBD,” despite the piece not being written or rehearsed yet. 

“It just makes sense, right?,” said one voter who chose to remain unnecessarily anonymous. “She’s been nominated, what? Twenty times? Let’s go for a cool twenty-one! Really stick it to Patti!”. Patti Lupone did not respond to our requests for comment.

Tony voters made the decision following the recent change to NY Primary election-day practices utilizing ranked-choice voting, and used that method for Tony nominations for the 2026 session: Audra McDonald was ranked #1 on 50% of the votes, and will automatically be considered for a Tony, regardless if she’s on Broadway or not. 

But the change in voting style did confuse some. Gilly Olsen, an usher at the Majestic Theatre, weighed in.

“Maybe I’m being dumb, but shouldn’t we like, see the show first? Shouldn’t we know if it’s any good? Now she can just, like, not show up to the theater and and still receive acclaim? That doesn’t feel right to me- oh you said AUDRA McDonald. Yeah that makes sense then.” 

Reports of McDonald’s nomination sent shock waves through the current Broadway season, with actors deciding they should already be doing press and FYC campaigns for next season’s awards.

Jeremy Jordan will appear on Jimmy Fallon next week promoting a musical where he sings a ballad at the end of act one. Ramin Karimloo will be appearing on Good Morning America in two weeks time to talk about the next show which will be first tried out on the West End, which will be news to Londoners. Jennifer Simard and Megan Hilty will be handing out fliers in Times Square to promote their new “women against women but in a sexy way” show which will be most likely written by a white man.

Olsen continued to discuss the issues that have already come from this new voting method being adopted.

“We had to reprint, like, a thousand playbills. Audra insisted that we include this new show in her bio, which was a pain. And this was after we had already reprinted them to be the Pride Playbill.”

Following up on the news of McDonald’s nomination, Kara Young has already been pencilled in as the winner of “Featured Performer in a Play” at next year’s awards.