Rock icon Pete Townshend will not only introduce the musical performance of The Who’s Tommy cast, but will take part in it: Deadline hears that Townshend and the Tommy cast are set to perform “Pinball Wizard.”
Townshend previously joined the Broadway cast on the March 26 episode of The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, when they performed a medley of Tommy songs.
In other Tony news, Nicole Scherzinger, who will star on Broadway this fall in the hit London revival of Sunset Boulevard, will perform during the In Memoriam segment of this Sunday’s Tony Awards.
Scherzinger will be introduced by Brooke Shields, the newly elected president of Actors’ Equity Association.
A separate Tony tribute is planned for Broadway’s legendary three-time-Tony-winner Chita Rivera, who died at 91 in January. Among those expected to join in the tribute are Audra McDonald, Rivera’s Kiss of the Spider Woman co-star Brian Stokes Mitchell, and Bebe Neuwirth, who, like Rivera, played the role of Velma in Broadway productions of Chicago.
An extensive and comprehensive list of Broadway artists who died during the current theater season – May 16, 2023 to May 20, 2024 – is posted on the Tony Awards website here.
People magazine was the first to report the Scherzinger news.
The Tony Awards airs Sunday, June 16, live from Lincoln Center’s David H. Koch Theater in New York on CBS and streaming on Paramount+ at 8 p.m. ET.