The secret lives of Tony nominees: How 13 Broadway stars unwind after the show
The secret lives of Tony nominees: How 13 Broadway stars unwind after the show
Caitlin HornikSun, June 7, 2026 at 10:40 AM UTC
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"Step, kick, kick, leap, kick, touch — again."
The famous refrain from A Chorus Line could easily double as the mantra of a Broadway actor. Eight shows a week demands a punishing cycle of performance and recovery, with physiotherapy, gym work, dance classes and vocal coaching squeezed around sleep, meals and whatever passes for life beyond the stage door. At this time of year, that intensity is compounded by Broadway's awards season, with the Tony Awards looming large over an already relentless schedule.
"They are like Olympic athletes," Tony-nominated director Bill Rauch tells me at the New Dramatists Spring Luncheon in New York. "What they are doing on that stage is so, so extraordinary. The fact that they're doing it eight times a week is beyond, and I'm in awe of all those artists."
On top of the physical intensity is the emotional weight of carrying characters in turmoil. Tony-nominated Ragtime choreographer Ellenore Scott says the company must regularly release the heaviness of a show steeped in racism, the pursuit of the American Dream and social upheaval. "I'm always like, take care of your bodies eight times a week. Holding on to that emotion also goes into your muscles," she tells me at the luncheon. "Take a bath, relax, have a drink of your choice, tea or wine, and be able to do something at the end of the day that makes you laugh. Watch a show that you really love or text someone, send someone a meme."
The combined physical and emotional toll can create a perfect storm of fatigue, injury and burnout, even for performers doing what they love most.
Ana Gasteyer, Richard Thomas, and Shoshana Bean told 'The Independent' how they unwind after a performance (Getty)
Ahead of the June 7 Tony Awards ceremony, 13 nominated actors shared their post-show routines and how they unwind. From decompressing with a cocktail to walking on the treadmill, here's what they had to say.
Ana Gasteyer — Best Performance by an Actress in a Featured Role in a Musical nominee for Schmigadoon!
Ana Gasteyer plays Mildred Layton in 'Schmigadoon' (Getty)
"I yell a lot. It's funny because I'm gonna take this comedic role and it's going to be such a cakewalk and I'm gonna go out for drinks with friends, but I scream so much it's not unlike Elphaba," Gasteyer said, referring to her role in Broadway's Wicked.
"I've had to be very, very careful vocally. I was actually on vocal rest a lot last week. Warm up, cool down, all the boring monk-like stuff. Nothing but non-alcoholic Guinness for like the last two months. So I'm hoping Tony night I might treat myself to a little bit of champagne with my friend Rachel Dratch, but I've been pretty much living that monastic musical theater girl life."
Ali Louis Bourzgui — Best Performance by an Actor in a Featured Role in a Musical nominee for The Lost Boys
Ali Louis Bourzgui stars as vampire leader David in 'The Lost Boys' (Reuters)
"It's kind of like a regimen that I have. I listen to — there's this saxophone player from I think the Fifties, Ben Webster, so I put on a bunch of his tenor saxophone. It relaxes me. It's also, I guess kind of like Lost Boys themes, the saxophone. Then I foam roll, I stretch, I take a hot shower. I have to do a lot of body maintenance, but I just treat my body like it is doing athletic things, which it is. I do a lot of cold plunges and literal things that athletes are doing."
Sam Tutty — Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role in a Musical nominee for Two Strangers (Carry a Cake Across New York)
'Sleep's the one thing you need to do the next one,' Tutty said of his post-show routine (Reuters)
"It's a great question. I steam. I eat loads. I eat about 4000 calories of food. I watch a show that I have going at the moment, whatever that is, and then I play some video games and I try to go to bed not too late because sleep's the one thing you need to do the next one."
Christiani Pitts — Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role in a Musical nominee for Two Strangers (Carry a Cake Across New York)
Christiani Pitts plays Robin opposite Sam Tutty in 'Two Strangers (Carry a Cake Across New York)' (Getty)
"I eat, which is crazy because it's so late, but I eat a nice soup, a really hearty soup, and I watch some sort of trash TV: Real Housewives, Love Island, you know, just something to kind of ease my mind, and then I go to sleep."
Shoshana Bean — Best Performance by an Actress in a Featured Role in a Musical nominee for The Lost Boys
Shoshana Bean plays Lucy Emerson in 'The Lost Boys' (Getty)
"This one has just been straight home, taking a sleeping pill and going to bed. There's certain nights where Paul [Alexander Nolan] and LJ [Benet] and I will sit and have a drink backstage after the show when things are not crazy," Bean shares.
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"My favorite way to come home – I come home, I eat, I watch TV, maybe I'll take a bath. Now that the weather's nice, I have a terrace, I can go outside and sit under the stars — not that you can see them, but yeah, those are my go-to ways I just like to chill."
Constantine Rousouli and Marla Mindelle, Titaníque
Rousouli: Nominated for two Tonys, including Best Book of a Musical and Best Musical
Mindelle: Nominated for three Tonys, including Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role in a Musical, Best Book of a Musical, and Best Musical
Former roommates Constantine Rousouli and Marla Mindelle are both nominated for 'Titaníque' (Getty)
Speaking in a joint interview at the New Dramatists luncheon, the Titaníque co-stars and former roommates divulge their secrets. Speaking of Rousouli, Mindelle says: "He comes home and he makes eggs, four eggs and beef, and he'll eat it with potato chips standing up. And then he'll go to bed around 12:30 and he'll wake up at 8."
Rousouli, meanwhile, jokingly calls out Mindelle for eating chocolate and watching reality TV "in her disgusting pajamas" and going to sleep "with socks on."
"But that's how we unwind. We basically are losers and we go to bed," he says. She adds: "When you're in a Broadway show, you can't really do that much. You have to go to bed immediately."
Hannah Cruz — Best Performance by an Actress in a Featured Role in a Musical nominee for Chess
Hannah Cruz is a first-time Tony nominee for her work in 'Chess' (Getty)
"I get home and I immediately take a shower — like immediately. Two to three days a week, I will do a face mask and microcurrent my face. That actually helps with jaw tension and stuff from singing. And then I also annoyingly get on my walking pad from 20 to 30 minutes before bed every night. I don't know why — I just have a little bit of OCD and I have to hit 10,000 steps. My show isn't very physical, so I have to make sure I get those. I like to get my body moving a little bit right before bed. It just makes me feel better lying down."
Betsy Aidem — Best Performance by an Actress in a Featured Role in a Play nominee for Liberation
'I'm a big preparer and I try to take off my makeup, take off my clothes, and get horizontal as soon as possible' (Getty)
"Well, it totally depended on whether someone I knew was there that I was going to go out with afterwards, and then it was one bourbon and some French fries. That's my unwinding. If I was going home on my own, usually, I took the train more than I took a taxi. I would come home, get my coffee ready for the next day. I'm a big preparer and I try to take off my makeup, take off my clothes, and get horizontal as soon as possible."
Bryce Pinkham — Best Performance by an Actor in a Featured Role in a Musical nominee for Chess
'You might see me running down 8th Avenue dodging bicycles and things,' Pinkham says of his post-show routine (Getty)
"Hilariously, my post-show routine is running to the bus because I have little kids, so that means I get up at 6:30 every morning regardless of what I did the night before. So my post-show routine is I fly out of the theater. You might see me running down 8th Avenue dodging bicycles and things, but once I'm on the bus, I get through the tunnel. I get in my car and I drive. Once I'm in the car, that's when the unwind begins. I put on a podcast. I listen to music that has nothing to do with musical theater. And then, I get home, I have a cup of tea with my wife, and I go to bed and get the kids off to school and then I go back to bed. So, you know, it's all about sleep."
Nicholas Christopher — Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role in a Musical nominee for Chess
Nicholas Christopher stars as Russian chess player Anatoly Sergievsky in 'Chess' (Getty)
"Sometimes I'll sit in my dressing room for like 5 or 10 minutes and just breathe, but really what helps me is every night, I go out and take pictures with people and meet those who were in the audience that night. That actually really helps me stay very grounded. The fact that it's reaching people and we get to talk about our experience that night is really special to me."
Susannah Flood — Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role in a Play nominee for Liberation
'I have a three-year-old at home and so I'd go in and check on him and I would — it's ridiculous — but I count his breathing,' Flood says of her post-show routine (Getty)
"What I really need to do is kind of like take the makeup off. So I had an herbal facial spray, and I would spray that on, take a second. There were also a lot of people who stood at the stage door who were flush with an emotional response of their own to the play. So I would go out and talk to those people, and a lot of those people had really personal things to say. It really got me out of myself because I was listening to other people and they wanted to leave that experience with me. That switched me back into a life that is about relating to other people as you find them, in a very pedestrian sort of way. So that kind of helped," Flood shares.
"And then I would go home. I have a three-year-old at home and so I'd go in and check on him and I would — it's ridiculous — but I count his breathing so I would go in the room, put my little hand on his tummy, like count his breath for like a full minute, and then it was like I'm back in what matters to me, like walking back into your own life and your own routine and letting go of the character."
Richard Thomas — Best Performance by an Actor in a Featured Role in a Play nominee for The Balusters
Richard Thomas stars as Elliot Emerson in 'The Balusters' (Getty Images for Tony Award Prod)
"I just go home and wreck my house with the baluster, because after 70 years of chewing the scenery, now I get to beat it up."
Source: “AOL Entertainment”
