Laura Benanti and Tituss Burgess present Tony Awards: Act One Pre-Show

The opening act of Broadway’s biggest night is over.

Laura Benanti and Tituss Burgess will host “The Tony Awards: Act One,” the official live pre-show preceding the 79th annual Tony Awards announced by the American Theater Wing and the Broadway League. The free streaming broadcast will air on Pluto TV on Sunday, June 7 from 6:35-8:00 PM ET, with the duo presenting the first round of competitive prizes. Immediately following the pre-show, the main ceremony will be broadcast live from coast to coast.

Benanti is a Tony winner and five-time nominee whose credits include “Gypsy,” “Into the Woods,” “She Loves Me,” “My Fair Lady” and Steve Martin’s “Meteor Shower.” On screen, she currently stars as Cindy opposite Jeremy Renner in Paramount+’s ‘Mayor of Kingstown’ and has starred alongside Jennifer Lawrence and Matthew Broderick in films such as ‘No Hard Feelings’. Her solo comedy show “Laura Benanti: Nobody Cares,” recorded by Audible, returns to London this summer ahead of a U.S. tour.

Burgess is a six-time Emmy and SAG nominee, who broke out as Titus Andromedon in Netflix’s hit comedy “Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt” and left. He stepped into Broadway’s highest-profile comedy last year as Mary Todd Lincoln in a limited run of Cole Escola’s hilarious play “Oh, Mary!” His upcoming list includes a voice role in Warner Bros.’ “The Cat in the Hat,” in theaters November 2026, and Paramount+’s “The Elephant & Piggie Show!” opposite Ellie Kemper. He also debuted his own musical adaptation of “The Preacher’s Wife” at the Alliance Theater in Atlanta in 2024.

This year’s 79th Tony Awards nominations were dominated by the musicals “The Lost Boys” and “Schmigadoon!” with twelve nods each, followed closely by the critically acclaimed revival of ‘Ragtime’ with eleven. ‘Death of a Salesman’, a radical reinterpretation of Arthur Miller’s view on the corrosive influence of capitalism, was the best play, earning nine nominations.

Raj Kapoor, Sarah Levine Hall and Jack Sussman serve as executive producers of this year’s show, with Kapoor and Levine Hall also serving as co-showrunners. The ceremony is produced in association with Tony Award Productions, a joint venture of the American Theater Wing and the Broadway League.

The 79th Tony Awards will be hosted by music superstar Pink and will air live on CBS on June 7 and stream on Paramount+ starting at 8 PM ET.