Will it be “Schmigadoon!” or “The Lost Boys”? John Lithgow or Nathan Lane? Susannah Flood or Lesley Manville? And what about sweet Daniel Radcliffe and his little pointy beard, fresh from cozying up for smiley selfies with tourists from Iowa having their Best Broadway Night Ever?

One thing is for sure. The pop musician Pink, now a New York resident and the host of the 79th Annual Tony Awards, will turn purple before our very eyes if anyone other than Laurie Metcalf delivers an acceptance speech for best supporting actress in a play, following her gut-wrenching performance in “Death of a Salesman.”

Supporting actor? Supportive, maybe. Supporting, never.

This year’s Tony Awards will be presented Sunday night at Radio City Music Hall in New York, broadcast live at 8 p.m. ET on CBS and streamed on Paramount+.

Pink, who has contributed music to “Moulin Rouge! The Musical” and “& Juliet,” is also slated to perform in a celebration of the musical “Chicago.” That should get the attention of CBS bosses and maybe ensure the Tony Awards get to renew their longtime home at the so-called Tiffany Network, which certainly has been taking aim at Gotham’s glittering media establishment. I’d argue both need each other. But that’s a question for another year.

This year, it will be interesting to see how far Broadway pushes its luck and how the new CBS reacts.

This is an uncommon Tony Awards for several reasons. One is that some of the categories, those involving non-musicals, are stacked with Tony-worthy performances — Lane (“Death of a Salesman”) and Lithgow (“Giant”) being two examples. Also in that category of best actor in a play is Radcliffe, whose incomparably generous and personalized performance in “Every Brilliant Thing,” along with the audience plant I saw coming out of the stage door, made so many Broadway theatergoers’ nights a memorable experience. In any other year, Radcliffe would be ascending to the podium, and deservedly so. Similar strength exists among actresses: Flood (of “Liberation”) and Manville (of “Oedipus”) both equally deserve the lead actress nod, although I remain ticked off that Ayo Edebiri (“The Bear”), who brought so much new and vital to “Proof,” did not get the nomination she richly deserved.

I’d give a Tony to all five of the candidates for best revival of a play: “Fallen Angels,” “Death of a Salesman,” “Becky Shaw,” “Every Brilliant Thing” and “Oedipus.” All five were excellent stagings and every single one of them was replete with exciting new ideas. I was knocked out by the complexity of the veracious and voracious performance of Alden Ehrenreich in “Becky Shaw,” but his victory in the best supporting actor category would deny Christopher Abbott, who delivered a writhing ball of pain as Biff in “Death of a Salesman” that I won’t forget. Like, ever.

Such was the acting this year in play revivals that I’d be surprised if any of the cast for “Joe Turner’s Come and Gone” proves victorious Sunday night — a pity, as that revival was stacked with superb performances.

But musicals are a different story.

The revivals this year were fine, well, except for “The Rocky Horror Show,” which did not deserve to be there because only one cast member, the terrific Luke Evans, actually committed to the truth of Richard O’Brien’s material. Everyone else was various degrees of insincere or arch. Improbably, Rachel Dratch, a performer I like enormously, walked away with a Tony nomination for a performance that was not really a performance at all. Plenty of others in transexual Transylvania got lucky, too.

I’d argue that “Cats: The Jellicle Ball” deserves the best revival of a musical Tony because it had such a radical revisionist concept that also managed to be an unexpectedly fine fit for the material. That, for my money, is what a Tony for a revival should mean. But “Ragtime” is the likely winner, even though that production mostly served as a showcase for the likes of Caissie Levy (Tony nominated and Tony worthy), Joshua Henry (ditto) and Brandon Uranowitz (ditto). “Cats” doesn’t have performers of that vocal quality but it doesn’t really need them. That is not its point. So, if there is justice in the Heaviside Layer, the stars of “Ragtime” will all have wonderful nights, as predicted, while “Cats” will take the best revival and best director and best choreography and best costume design prizes to celebrate what it uniquely achieved.

Alas, there is no Kristin Chenoweth nomination to compete with Levy, even though Chenoweth’s performance in the shuttered “Queen of Versailles” was the most courageous performance of the year, especially by a star of her wattage. Stars don’t like to play unlikable characters but Chenoweth had the guts. And who could seriously deny Lea Michele a spot? When she leaves “Chess,” “Chess” leaves Broadway. Audiences are not fools.

To suggest that pastiche work in “Titanique” or “Schmigadoon!” or the rom-com tropes in “Two Strangers (Carry a Cake Across New York)” was comparable to either Chenoweth or Michele is, well, simply unjust.

Similarly, I doubt the Tony cameras will pan to the great Stephen Schwartz, whose better-than-people-realize score for “Queen of Versailles” was booted in favor of two separate nominations for incidental music for a play. Both quite lovely but not the same. Not scores, at least not as I think of them.

For many of us, new musicals is more a matter of none of the above, this year. I’d expect “The Lost Boys” to win by virtue of the quality of its design and direction, but only by default, given the slightness of “Two Strangers,” the lack of theatrical ambition of the admittedly charming “Schmigadoon!” and the parody aesthetic of “Titanique” — a fun cruise and all but, you know, Broadway prices. Maybe “Schmigadoon!” will sneak in there as a tempting tender.

In any other year, though, including the far more musically promising next season, none of these musicals would have even been nominated. On the other hand, I’ll wager the 2026-27 slate of revivals of plays won’t hold a candle to what we have enjoyed this past season on Broadway. Hopefully, I’ll be proved wrong.

I was about to end with the cliche “timing is everything,” and I guess you’ll see that play out at Sunday’s Tony Awards, a famously arbitrary artistic arbiter, but, actually, it’s not not even close to everything in the theater.

Ambition, creativity, a willingness to risk and above all to open up our hearts and minds to life’s great truths and pleasures matter far more. They just don’t always win. Or even get nominated.

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