Tony award

25 September 2026

The Tonys, or officially the Antoinette Perry Awards for Excellence in Broadway Theatre, are, of course, named for Antoinette Perry (1888–1946), a Broadway actor, producer, and director, and also the co-founder of the American Theatre Wing. That organization was created in 1940 as a branch of the British War Relief Society, a charitable organization that provided non-military aid to Britain during the war. During war, the Wing operated Stage Door Canteens in New York and other cities that provided meals and entertainment to military service members. Following the war, the organization changed its mission to that of promoting the history of and excellence in American theater. The annual awards, part of this changed mission, were named after Perry, who had died the previous year.

The first awards were given out on 6 April 1947, and the nickname Tony, parallel to Hollywood’s Oscar, starts appearing in the press shortly before. New York’s Daily News, for instance, has this from 27 March 1947:

Theatre Award Season Here, Stage Folk to Receive Tonys

[…]

A little while back in this space I noted that the theatre has no equivalent, in the respect and publicity it gets, to the Oscars bestowed by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Brock Pemberton, president of the League of New York Theatres, thinks that I am wrong—that on Easter Sunday evening at the Waldorft, the bestowing of Tonys upon deserving stage workers will be every bit as important as the heaping of Oscars in Hollywood. Says Brock:

“Your statement that the stage probably never would have a real Oscar was just a tiny bit inaccurate. It won’t have Oscars, but will have their counterpart, Tonys. Haven’t you been told about the Antoinette Perry Awards to be given out annually in memory of that great lady under the sponsorship of the American Theatre Wing?”

The above quotation from Pemberton indicates that Tony was already in circulation among theater folks by this date.

Another early example is from the Daily News a few days later, on 2 April 1947:

The balloting for recipients of Tonys has been secret but there are indications that several “important theatre personalities will be taking bows” Sunday night, not for “firsts” or “bests” but for “original contributions, innovations and departures considered to further a good trend in the theatre.”

Sources:

Chapman, John. “Theatre Award Season Here, Stage Folk to Receive Tonys.” Daily News (New York), 27 March 1947, 67/1. Newspapers.com.

Oxford English Dictionary Online, accessed 8 June 2026, s.v. Tony, n.1.

Shapiro, Fred. “[Ads-l] ‘Tony’ award, slight antedating. ADS-L, 8 June 2026.

Watt Douglas. “Reproduce Canteen for Perry Awards; an Atomic Comedy.” Daily News (New York), 2 April 1947, 63/1. ProQuest Newspapes.

Photo credit: Philip Romano, 2026. Wikimedia Commons. Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license.