{"id":258809,"date":"2026-06-08T03:41:09","date_gmt":"2026-06-08T03:41:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/258809\/"},"modified":"2026-06-08T03:41:09","modified_gmt":"2026-06-08T03:41:09","slug":"pink-queen-latifah-whitney-leavitt-chicago-performance-opens-tonys","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/258809\/","title":{"rendered":"Pink, Queen Latifah, Whitney Leavitt ‘Chicago’ Performance Opens Tonys"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tNew York ain\u2019t the Windy City, but Radio City Music Hall hosted a star-studded tribute to Chicago on Sunday (June 7) during the 79th annual Tony Awards<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\n\tP!nk<\/a> (2026 Tonys host), Queen Latifah (who played Matron \u201cMama\u201d Morton in Rob Marshall\u2019s 2002 film adaptation), Whitney Leavitt (who currently plays Roxie Hart on Broadway<\/a>), Dylan Mulvaney (who recently wrapped a run in Broadway\u2019s Six), Alex Newell (2023 Tony winner and Chicago Broadway veteran) and Julianne Hough (who hosted the 2022 Tonys pre-show) and more participated in a medley of the musical\u2019s best-known songs.<\/p>\n

\n\tAfter an introduction and torch passing (\u201cfrom one mother hen to another\u201d) from Queen Latifah, Newell belted out a song both of them know well: \u201cWhen You\u2019re Good to Mama.\u201d Newell\u2019s boisterous voice was on full display, making Mama a helluva hard act to follow. But it helps when you have a round-robin of murderesses talking about how they killed the men who had it comin\u2019: \u201cCell Block Tango,\u201d which everyone (including Jesse Tyler Ferguson in a brief but hilarious cameo) sold with gusto. To wrap it up, P!nk sang Chicago centerpiece song \u201cAll That Jazz\u201d: the hardest-rocking pop star served jazz hands, vocal excellence and a bit of the cat who caught the canary energy at the end, clearly living her childhood fantasy on the Tony Awards<\/a> stage.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cWe\u00a0always come from a theatrical place,\u201d the Grammy winner told Billboard<\/a> ahead of her Tonys hosting gig when asked about the connection between live theater and her concerts.\u00a0\u201cI mean, for me,\u00a0I\u2019m\u00a0a carney, right?\u00a0So\u00a0it\u2019s\u00a0sort of like\u00a0a\u00a0circus,\u00a0without\u00a0the animals\u00a0of course, other than the humans.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe multi-song performance commemorated 30 years of Chicago on Broadway; while the John Kander and Fred Ebb musical debuted on Broadway in 1975, the current revival opened in 1996 and has been running ever since, making it the longest-running show currently on the Great White Way and the longest-running musical revival ever.<\/p>\n

\n\tPrior to the Chicago stopover, P!nk opened the 2026 Tonys with an extravagant, hilarious parody of her collaborative 2001 smash \u201cLady Marmalade\u201d (a Billboard Hot 100 No. 1) rewritten as \u201cLeading Lady Marmalade,\u201d which brought out Megan Thee Stallion, Lea Michele, Neil Patrick Harris, the Tony-nominated women of 2026 and dancers from The Lost Boys, Cats: The Jellicle Ball, Schmigadoon! and more.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"New York ain\u2019t the Windy City, but Radio City Music Hall hosted a star-studded tribute to Chicago on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":258810,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[2470,207,6200,9,24,63,122,124,123,30427],"class_list":["post-258809","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-queens","tag-awards","tag-broadway","tag-genre-pop","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc","tag-queens","tag-queens-headlines","tag-queens-news","tag-tony-awards"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/258809","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=258809"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/258809\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/258810"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=258809"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=258809"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=258809"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}