The Tony Awards Should Remove William Ivey Long From Its Nominating Committee
OnStage Blog Editorial
The Tony Awards announced its Nominating Committee for the 2026–27 Broadway season on Friday, naming 65 theatre professionals who will spend the year attending productions and ultimately voting on who receives a Tony nomination.
Among the new members is six-time Tony Award-winning costume designer William Ivey Long.
That name should immediately raise alarms, like bright red flashing alarms that wake up the entire neighborhood
Long is one of the most decorated costume designers in Broadway history. He is also someone who has faced multiple public allegations of sexual misconduct and abuse, allegations that have been reported nationally and have followed him for years.
And now, despite all of that, the Tony Awards have handed him a position with the power to influence careers and help decide who gets elevated on Broadway.
There is a lot to unpack about how we got here. But before anything else, one question needs to be asked:
Why?
To understand why Long’s appointment is so stunning, you have to go back through what has actually been alleged against him.
In 2018, Michael Martin publicly accused Long of repeated sexual harassment while Martin was a young theatre worker at The Lost Colony in North Carolina. Martin told BuzzFeed News that Long repeatedly touched him without his consent and made sexually charged comments toward him during the 1996 season. Long denied Martin’s allegations.
Then Court Watson came forward.
Watson worked also at The Lost Colony while he was a college student between 2000 and 2003. He alleged that in 2002, after becoming heavily intoxicated at a gathering, Long took him back to his home, gave him additional alcohol and had sex with him when Watson says he was incapable of consenting. NPR reported in 2021 that it had corroborated elements of Watson’s account with people he told about the alleged incident.
In 2023, Watson went further and filed a civil lawsuit against Long and the Roanoke Island Historical Association, which produces The Lost Colony. The suit accused Long of “repeated grooming, sexual harassment, and ultimately rape” and alleged that the organization helped enable and conceal the conduct. Long has denied the allegations against him.
And Watson and Martin weren’t the only names connected to allegations involving Long.
NPR also reported on a lawsuit filed in 2002 by former Lost Colony production manager Mary Elizabeth Stewart. That lawsuit alleged that multiple employees had reported sexual harassment or assault by Long between 1999 and 2001. Stewart’s lawsuit was eventually settled. NPR reported that it found no record of criminal charges stemming from those allegations, and Long emphatically denied them.
Watson’s case against Long was ultimately dismissed by a New York appellate court in May 2026. But that distinction needs to be understood clearly: the court’s ruling centered on whether an alleged 2008 encounter met the statutory definition of “forcible touching” required to revive the claims under New York’s Adult Survivors Act. The court did not conduct a trial and determine that Watson’s allegation of a 2002 sexual assault was false.
These allegations were made publicly over a period of years, investigated and reported by major news organizations, and in Watson’s case, put into a sworn civil complaint.
And the Tony Awards knew—or certainly should have known—all of this before putting William Ivey Long on its Nominating Committee.
That’s what infuriates us about this. They didn’t have to put him on this committee. They didn’t have to give him another stamp of approval from one of Broadway’s most powerful institutions.
They chose to.
There is a huge difference between saying someone is still permitted to work in the theatre and actively elevating that person into a position where they help change the trajectory of so many careers on Broadway.
Since the #MeToo movement, many have come out to say that abuses of power cannot simply be ignored because the person involved is well-connected.
There were countless qualified theatre professionals the Tony Awards could have selected for this committee.
Instead, they chose William Ivey Long.
Yes, he should be removed from the Tony Awards Nominating Committee.
And we hope the other members of this committee make it clear that they will not lend their names to this decision. If Long remains, they should be prepared to resign.
At some point, people inside this industry have to decide whether all the talk about accountability actually means anything. This is one of those moments.