The 42nd Tony Awards ceremony was held on June 5, 1988, at the Minskoff Theatre and broadcast live on CBS, hosted by Angela Lansbury.

Musicals represented were:^[1]

• A Chorus Line, "Music and the Mirror" - Donna McKechnie
• Anything Goes, "Anything Goes" - Patti LuPone and Company
• Dreamgirls, "One Night Only"/"Dreamgirls" - Sheryl Lee Ralph, Loretta Devine and Terry Burrell;
• Into the Woods, "Into the Woods"/"Children Will Listen" - Phylicia Rashad and Company;
• The Phantom of the Opera, Last verse of "The Phantom of the Opera" and "The Music of The Night" - Sarah Brightman and Michael Crawford;
• Romance/Romance, "I'll Always Remember the Song"/"It's Not Too Late" - Scott Bakula, Alison Fraser and Company
• Sarafina!, "Sarafina!" - Company

Plays represented were:^[1]M. Butterfly, Scene with John Lithgow and BD Wong; Joe Turner's Come and Gone, Scene with Mel Winkler, Ed Hall and Delroy Lindo; A Walk in the Woods, Scene with Sam Waterston and Robert Prosky; and Speed-the-Plow, Scene with Joe Mantegna and Ron Silver.

A tribute to the late Michael Bennett was performed by Donna McKechnie of the original Chorus Line and the three original Dreamgirls, Terry Burrell, Loretta Devine and Sheryl Lee Ralph.^[2]

At these Tony Awards, the longest-running musical on Broadway, Andrew Lloyd Webber's Phantom of the Opera, competed for awards and received the season's Best Musical award.

Winners are in bold

Regional Theatre Tony Award

• South Coast Repertory, Costa Mesa, CA

Special Awards

• Brooklyn Academy of Music

• Drama Desk Awards
• 1988 Laurence Olivier Awards – equivalent awards for West End theatre productions
• Obie Award
• New York Drama Critics' Circle
• Theatre World Award
• Lucille Lortel Awards