‘Death of a Salesman’ revival leads Tony Awards with six wins as John Lithgow and Lesley Manville claim acting trophies

The 2026 Tony Awards on Sunday handed a major share of the evening’s prizes to the Broadway revival of Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman, which took six awards overall, including best revival of a play. The wins placed the production at the center of the ceremony for the year’s top honors celebrating American theatre.

John Lithgow and Lesley Manville were among the night’s leading acting winners. Lithgow, aged 80, won best leading actor in a play for his performance as Roald Dahl in Giant, marking his oldest competitive acting Tony win and extending a long record of recognition at the awards. In his acceptance remarks, Lithgow described the victory as “two Tony bookends with 53 years between them,” referring to the span since his first Tony win for Changing Rooms, which opened on Broadway in 1972.

Manville won best leading actress in a play for her performance as Jocasta in Oedipus. The BBC report said the Tony was the first of her career and that it arrived during her inaugural appearance on Broadway. Manville told the audience she was “a bit overwhelmed,” adding that it was “my first time on Broadway so this is such a big deal,” after which she also acknowledged fellow nominees.

Another major play winner was Laurie Metcalf, who took best featured actress in a play for her role in Death of a Salesman. Metcalf, the BBC report noted, is a two-time Academy Award nominee, and her win added to the revival’s overall haul by recognizing her in the featured acting category.

The night’s awards also highlighted a broader pathway from production seasons outside the United States. The BBC report said the victories for Lithgow and Manville echoed last year’s Olivier Awards, because both their productions had played in the UK before transferring to Broadway, linking the two awards circuits through shared performers and creative teams.

Coverage of the winners list similarly described Joe Mantello’s revival as dominating the play categories, while other productions earned top placements in musical categories. The Guardian noted that Manville and Lithgow won leading acting trophies in plays, and it also described Death of a Salesman as having won six awards and previously having been recognized for best play and best revival in earlier Tony years.

In addition to the acting and revival honors, the ceremony’s results consolidated public documentation of that season’s top stage achievements in New York. Winners advance the visibility of their current productions and performers into the following stages of touring, licensing, and future casting, but specific follow-on deals were not detailed in the accounts reviewed for this report.