It’s been a busy 48 hours for actor Joshua Henry and choreographer Ellenore Scott. On the morning of Sunday, May 3, the two were on the steps of the Metropolitan Museum of Art rehearsing—Henry had been asked to perform an opening number for the 2026 Met Gala, choreographed by Scott. Then on the evening of May 4, he performed that number, to a livestream audience of 11 million.

On May 5, both Henry and Scott got a Tony nomination—Henry for his lead performance in Ragtime, Scott for choreographing Ragtime.

“I’m having a pretty good 24 hours, so I’m very happy,” Scott said to Playbill May 5. “My son said ‘Mama’ for the first time today. So everything is going really well for me!”

Henry was even more ecstatic, saying: “Waking up to getting my fourth Tony Award nomination for Ragtime on Broadway after my opening performance at The Met Gala last night… bro, what is happening?! My heart is bursting with gratitude. I feel grounded in God, my supportive family, and my creative community in a fiery way.”

Watch Henry’s performance of “I Want to Dance With Somebody” on the steps of the museum in the video below. And scroll down to read more on how the gala’s first ever pre-red carpet opening number came together.

The Met Gala is known for celebrating fashion, with celebrity and fashion designers attending to help raise money for the Met’s Costume Institute. In recent years, theatre stars have also graced the red carpet. This year’s theatrical attendees included Tony winner Ben Platt, Rocky Horror star Luke Evans and director Sam Pinkleton, and triple threats Hugh Jackman and Sutton Foster.

But what is more New York than an old-fashioned opening number. Over a month ago, Henry got the Met Gala gig to craft a performance to open the Met Gala’s red carpet. He quickly called Scott to serve as creative consultant. While Henry chose the song and orchestrated it himself, it was up to Scott to figure out how the whole thing would look. The only stipulation was that the performance should start in the museum’s galleries. So when you watch the Vogue livestream, you will see Henry walk through the Greek and Roman art collection (which was pre-taped) before exiting onto the Met red (or rather, for that evening, speckled green) carpet for the live performance. For the rest, Scott and Henry were free to be creative.

Explains Scott: “We wanted it to feel like he went from inside the museum and was so inspired by what he saw there that he wanted to sing … There really was no blueprint. They were like, ‘You can kind of do whatever you want.'” Scott kept it basic, with Henry dressed in red as the visual focal point, while the performers around him were in black. “I proposed maybe the dancers are photographers, and it’s kind of like flash mob, and all of a sudden they start dancing. And then the choir reveals, and they reveal the band.” In total, the performance featured a 12-person choir, eight dancers, and a four-member band.

Joshua Henry performs at the 2026 Met Gala

Many of the dancers came from the shows Scott has worked on, such as Funny Girl and High Spirits at New York City Center. When she called them about the gig, she couldn’t even tell them what they were working on. Laughs Scott: “It was so funny because the dancers and the choir and the band had to be, told, like, ‘Can you do these dates? We can’t tell you what it’s for,’ because there were so many NDAs we had to sign. So I literally had dancers that were like, ‘We don’t know what we’re doing, but we can’t wait to work with you.'”

The team had to be quick on their feet—and not just because they were dancers. Because the museum was open on Sunday, they could not rehearse in the gallery. So the first full run-through of the opening number didn’t occur until hours before the event, on Monday morning. But Scott wasn’t worried, and there weren’t many snags. “Working in musical theatre, you’re making changes on the spot [all the time] … To say, like, ‘Let’s re-do this entire formation so that we’re now on the steps’ was actually really easy. These dancers in particular, I had worked with so much before, they were down to clown, and they’re smart, and they were able to make the changes really fast, which I was very grateful for.”

While Henry attended the Met Gala itself after with his wife Cathryn Henry, Scott ducked out right after the opening number—she had to run over to a Chita Rivera Awards event (fitting since she is a double nominee). As she remarks lightly: “It was okay. I’ll get [to the Met Gala] next time.”

Joshua Henry performs at the 2026 Met Gala