The 2026 Tony Awards Red Carpet Was a Love Letter to Broadway (Exclusive)

Broadway’s biggest night (the one that hands out the T in EGOT) rolled out its red carpet outside Radio City Music Hall on Sunday, and the celebs showed up and showed out. Pink hosted the festivities, Schmigadoon!, Cats: The Jellicle Ball, and The Lost Boys all won major awards, and the red carpet fashion was stunning.

The stars spoke with Cosmopolitan live from the red carpet about why theater makes them swoon. “Broadway just is romantic,” Krysta Rodriguez said. “New York City is romantic to me. I’m in a relationship with New York. I always have been, and sometimes it buys me flowers, sometimes we get in fights. But one of the things I love about it is the summer and just how people really take control of the city. It feels like we get it back, and part of that is Broadway.”

For others, it’s about who finally gets to be at the center of the love story. “There are gay love stories on Broadway! We love that,” Frankie Grande told Cosmo. “That’s really beautiful; it’s the most romantic thing. Not only are we gay, but we’re actually playing gay people, which is really exciting in 2026. I play a gay man onstage every night who is in love with every male onstage, which is a love story.”

And then there’s the simplest answer of all, courtesy of Ashley Longshore: “There’s nothing more romantic than going to the theater. I think we all want a life full of romance and joy, and we find that in the theater.” For Ashley personally, the love story that stuck this season was Cats: The Jellicle Ball. “It was full of so much love, not just love for one another but family love,” she said. “Then being able to share this amazing culture that is really based on family and love with us, how lucky are we? And Junior LaBeija sitting up there? That is my favorite love story.”

Sometimes, though, the most romantic thing isn’t the romance at all. “I feel like we don’t have enough stories that show courage and political acts of survival and resistance with ordinary people,” said Best Play–winning Liberation director Whitney White. “I call us ordinary people in a very proud way at the center of the story, and I was very moved by the fact that Liberation followed a group of women in the Midwest just gathering and having simple conversation, and that simple conversation was politically relevant.”

The good news for anyone who just turned into a theater person after watching the Tonys: Cosmopolitan saw everything this season, and senior director of entertainment Maxwell Losgar has the rundown on what’s actually worth a ticket. “Awards are cute, but taste is personal,” he writes. “And if you’re NYC-bound…it’s nice to know from someone who’s seen it all what’s actually worth a $250+ orchestra seat.” Now, keep scrolling for every killer look from the 2026 Tony Awards red carpet.