Caissie Levy attributed her 2026 Tony Award win, in part, to a support network of babysitters.
“Thank you to … every babysitter who’s made it possible for me to be both a Broadway actor and a mother,” the mom-of-two, 45, said during her Tony Awards acceptance speech inside New York City’s Radio City Music Hall on Sunday, June 7.
Winning in the category of Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role in a Play for her work as Mother in the revival of Ragtime, Levy also thanked her children, Izaiah, 10, and Talulah, 5, whom she shares with husband David Reiser.
“Thank you to my Ragtime family,” Levy began. “Playing Mother has been one of the greatest gifts of my artistic life, and being mother to my kids has been the greatest joy of my life. Izaiah and Talulah, I love you, and although I’m not there to tuck you in each night, you have to know that part of my heart stays home with you.”
Levy’s speech, which touched on her childhood dreams of becoming a Broadway star while growing up in Canada, concluded, “I love acting, I love theater, I love this incredible community. I’m so honored, thank you so much.”
Levy also thanked her parents, who joined her at the awards ceremony, and Reiser, a composer and writer. “My husband, David, where are you — wave at me, hi —I’m so proud of the life we’ve built together,” she said. “I love you, you’re the best thing that ever happened to me.”
While Ragtime has kept Levy on Broadway since October 2025, the actress stepped away from the Broadway-bound Lost Boys musical in November that year due to the demand of her family. She told Elle in an interview published on May 29 that her children had a “very difficult start to the school year” and needed more from her. “It became very obvious in a matter of weeks that there was no way I could go back into a [rehearsal] process [for The Lost Boys] and basically be gone for three months straight from my kids’ lives,” she told the outlet.
Paying tribute to the child care network she referenced in her Tony Awards speech, Levy added that their support has been crucial in getting her to where she is today. “I’m very fortunate to have this support system that definitely is integral to making a Broadway schedule work. The babysitters and nannies of the world, they are the heroes of my life, truly, and they always have been,” she said. “I’ve had past students of mine become little sisters who have helped me with my children. These young women have literally enabled me to have a career and have a child and be a parent at the same time.”
Past Chicago stars brought all that jazz to the 2026 Tony Awards to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the beloved musical. Whitney Leavitt, Julianne Hough, Pink, Queen Latifah, Jesse Tyler Ferguson, Alex Newell, Adrienne Warren, Dylan Mulvaney and more performed multiple during the Sunday, June 7, awards show at Radio City Music Hall in New […]
Levy continued, “I am always all about lifting up the babysitters and the nannies and the, sort of, tribes that we lean on to help raise our kids. To get to raise kids in this environment is so amazing, to have them backstage at the theater and have all these aunties and uncles in the cast and crew. It does take a whole village of people to help you do it.”
