ana gasteyer earned her first Tony Award nomination for Best Featured Actress in a Musical for Schmigadoon!. The 59-year-old is playing Mildred at Broadway’s Nederlander Theatre while the Tony ceremony is set for Sunday at Radio City Music Hall in New York.
Gasteyer’s 25-Year Path
The nomination lands after 25 years in comedy, television, and theater, a span Gasteyer described as a long route to this moment. "I've been doing this for 25 years, [so] it's just a cool little moment of saying, 'Oh yeah, guess what, I was on the right path.'"
She tied the recognition to the mix of disciplines that brought her here. "I'm doing a job that synthesizes all the things I love, which is comedy and musical theater and staying home in New York," she said. "I love the discipline. I love the rigor."
Northwestern to SNL
Gasteyer said she got into Northwestern University by singing, then left music within a year after meeting comedy people there. "I was a proper voice major. I got rejected everywhere else — it was the hardest school I applied to, and I got in — but I dropped out of music within a year because I met the comedy people, and it changed my life."
After graduation, she joined The Groundlings in Los Angeles and was cast on Saturday Night Live from there. She stayed on the show for six years, then later returned in 2025 with Will Ferrell for the program’s 50th anniversary celebration, reviving Bobbi and Marty with material co-written by Paula Pell.
Broadway Payoff
That path now gives Schmigadoon! a Broadway awards lift at a moment when the show is already on stage with Gasteyer in a lead ensemble role. Her career has already crossed film, television, and live theater, including Mean Girls, where she played the mother of Lindsay Lohan’s character Cady.
For a 59-year-old performer who left music, rebuilt through comedy, and kept returning to musical theater, the Tony nod is the kind of industry validation that can sharpen attention on a Broadway run. It puts her in line for the award on Sunday, and it gives Schmigadoon! a nomination tied directly to the work audiences can buy a ticket to see now.
