Photographed by Emilio Madrid

If the Tony Awards are like the World Cup, then the cheerful dinner party that Anna Wintour and Bee Carrozzini host at home in the weeks before the ceremony each spring is a bit like one of the pre-tournament friendlies. It's a chance for some of the standout performers of the season—and the directors and playwrights behind their material—to limber up and rub shoulders a bit before formally facing off.

Such was the premise of the joint remarks that Wintour and Carrozzini delivered on Sunday night, as they welcomed some 50 members of New York’s theater set for cocktails in the living room of Wintour’s Manhattan townhouse, followed by a relaxed seated dinner downstairs and cake for dessert (created this year by pastry chef Daniel Colonel).

“You’ve all been through rounds and rounds of nominations, warm salads, and what the theater community sweetly calls ‘galas,’ seemingly pitting you all against each other,” Wintour said.

“But the spirit of the World Cup isn’t about winning, it’s about bringing everyone together with all their special talents, skills, and craft,” added Carrozzini.

Their guests certainly had talent, skill, and craft in abundance. Among the earliest to arrive and step out into Wintour’s backyard for a brief portrait session with Emilio Madrid—a regular presence at opening nights, both on the carpet and behind the scenes—were three of the best (and busiest) directors currently working on Broadway: Kenny Leon, who brought to life a neighborhood association run hilariously amok via David Lindsay-Abaire’s The Balusters; Lear DeBessonet, the artistic director of Lincoln Center Theater, whose revival of Ragtime raked in 11 Tony nominations this year (five members of her cast—Joshua Henry, in a divine shade of butter yellow; his Sarah, the preternaturally talented Nichelle Lewis; Brandon Uranowitz, looking spiffy in Saint Laurent; Caissie Levy, in an ethereal, powder-blue Prada shift; and Ben Levi Ross, in a fetching stand-collar jacket from Kenzo—would join the party later on); and Whitney White, who with playwright Bess Wohl staged the stunningly moving memory play Liberation at the James Earl Jones Theatre last fall. (Wohl, along with Liberation stars Susannah Flood and Betsy Aidem, weren’t long behind her.)

As is her wont, White is already gearing up for another play: The Whoopi Monologues, opening at LCT’s Newhouse Theater this summer. (“We’ve made a bold choice to do it with five women,” White explained of the piece, an adaptation of Whoopi Goldberg’s iconic, self-titled one-woman show that ran at the Lyceum Theatre from 1984 to 1985. “All of us were inspired by Whoopi. She was so avant garde and fresh at the time. She crawled so we could ball.”)

Zhailon Levingston and Bill Rauch, co-directors of Cats: The Jellicle Ball—that deliciously innovative revival of one of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s best-known theatrical fantasias—were also early, Levingston in a splendidly tailored, tonal gray suit by Byrd-Olivieri and Rauch in a salmon pink suit studded with twinkling midcentury brooches. “I’m not nervous, but I am kind of white-knuckling it to the Tonys because I’m so introverted,” Levingston said of navigating these last hectic days before the June 7 broadcast. “But it’s the biggest blessing ever.”

Webber, for his part—who has lately enjoyed a string of wondrous reimaginings of his work, from Cats to Jamie Lloyd’s eye-popping Sunset Boulevard last season, and the forthcoming transfer of Evita, starring Rachel Zegler, from the West End to the Winter Garden Theatre in 2027—has dabbled with a little reinvention himself. On Friday night, he shut down the street outside the Broadhurst Theatre for a special post-show set as his musical alter ego, “DJ Webz” (with an assist from fellow emcee DJ Bill Coleman). Asked by Madrid how it all went down, Webber replied in his hushed RP, “It was actually great fun.”

Levingston wasn’t the only person hanging on for dear life at the moment: several of the actors at dinner are still in the midst of their runs, balancing various press obligations with their very demanding day (and night!) jobs. There’s Kara Young, who currently stars with Ayo Edebiri in the first Broadway revival of David Auburn’s Proof; for several weeks this June she will be doing Proof and rehearsing The Whoopi Monologues simultaneously. Asked what he typically does after a Sunday matinee, LJ Benet—a star, along with Ali Louis Bourzgui, of The Lost Boys, the most Tony-nominated show this Broadway season—said, without hesitation, “either order a full barbecue chicken pizza for myself, or whatever comfort food I’m craving.” The wonderful Aaron Tveit, who has three weeks left in Chess with Lea Michele and Nicholas Christopher, made no bones about the show’s score, by Benny Andersson, Björn Ulvaeus, and Tim Rice, being among the most challenging he’s ever sung. “Eight shows a week always comes with a bit of a cost, but this one in particular has been difficult,” he said. “But it’s also very fun because you get to just go out there and let it rip, and Lea and Nick are doing the same thing.”

The evening was also filled with artists and actors singing the praises of their peers. Webber took Caissie Levy’s hands to cheer her gorgeous performance as Mother in Ragtime (“Really fabulous… nice standing ovation for you!”) and Sam Pinkleton, director of The Rocky Horror Show with Luke Evans (dressed on Sunday in a breezy cable knit polo), had just that afternoon been to see Marla Mindelle and Constantine Rousouli’s raucous Titaníque. (“I had the time of my life,” he gushed.) Some talked shop: Rauch chatted warmly with Jeremy Herrin, director of Every Brilliant Thing, about the small (but meaningful) ways in which that big-hearted show had changed since Daniel Radcliffe wrapped up his run in late May and Mariska Hargitay came in in his place (for one thing, a doting reference to Super Mario Bros. had become a tribute to Tinker Bell).

As a denim-clad Christopher Abbott—so magnificent this season as Biff Loman in Death of a Salesman—shared a warm moment with Betsy Aidem, Susannah Flood introduced herself both to Abbott’s co-star Ben Ahlers and Alden Ehrenreich, a star of the blisteringly funny Becky Shaw, who arrived with its playwright, Gina Gionfriddo. Elsewhere, Titaníque co-author Tye Blue greeted nine-time Tony nominee Kelli O’Hara—who has about a week left in Noël Coward’s fizzy drawing-room comedy Fallen Angels—with her unofficial honorific, “icon legend”; Bug’s Carrie Coon—dressed in sharp-shouldered, Yves Klein-blue Mugler—chatted up Sara Chase of Schmigadoon! (Coon described how her husband, the great playwright Tracy Letts, is fond of saying, of musical theater actors, “‘Oh, yes, those people are actually talented’”); and Pinkleton—in a finely textured and appliquéd white suit from Tanner Fletcher—admired Schmigadoon! director–choreographer Christopher Gattelli’s hand-painted jacket by costume designer Wilberth Gonzalez. (He has another in the works for Tonys Sunday.)