Drama Desk Award for Outstanding One-Person Show

The Drama Desk Award for Outstanding One-Person Show is presented by the Drama Desk, a committee of New York City theatre critics, writers, and editors. It honors an individual presenting a solo performance in a Broadway, off-Broadway, off-off-Broadway, or legitimate not-for-profit theater production.

It was not until the 30th Annual Drama Desk Awards in 1984 that a specific category for Outstanding One-Person Show was created. The first recipient was Ian McKellen for Acting Shakespeare.

Winners and nominees

1980s

• 1984: Ian McKellen – Acting Shakespeare
  • Edward Duke – Jeeves Takes Charge
  • Billie Whitelaw – Rockaby
  • Kaye Ballard – Hey, Ma...Kaye Ballard
  • Phillip Baker Hall – Secret Honor
  • Estelle Parsons – Orgasmo Adulto Escapes from the Zoo

• 1985: Whoopi Goldberg – Whoopi Goldberg
  • Spalding Gray – Swimming to Cambodia
  • Avner Eisenberg – Avner the Eccentric
  • Ekkehard Schall – An Evening with Ekkehard Schall
  • Lori Wilner – Hannah Senesh
  • Alec McCowen – Kipling

• 1986: Eric Bogosian – Drinking in America
  • Elisabeth Welch – Time to Start Living

• 1987: Barbara Cook – A Concert for the Theatre
  • No nominees

1990s

• 1990: Robert Morse – Tru
  • Eric Bogosian – Sex, Drugs, Rock & Roll
  • Kathryn Grody – A Mom's Life
  • Mandy Patinkin – Mandy Patinkin in Concert: "Dress Casual"

• 1991: Eileen Atkins – A Room of One's Own
  • Jeffrey Essmann – Artificial Reality
  • Spalding Gray – Monster in a Box
  • Tracey Ullman – The Big Love

• 1992: Patrick Stewart – A Christmas Carol
  • Stan Freeman – At Wit's End
  • Kevin Kling – Home and Away
  • Josh Kornbluth – Red Diaper Baby

• 1993: Anna Deavere Smith – Fires in the Mirror
  • John Leguizamo – Spic-O-Rama
  • Ron Vawler – Roy Cohn/Jack Smith
  • Lynn Redgrave – Shakespeare for My Father

• 1994: Anna Deavere Smith – Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992
  • Eric Bogosian – Pounding Nails in the Floor with my Forehead
  • Sherry Glaser – Family Secrets
  • Claudia Shear – Blown Sideways Through Life
  • Spalding Gray – Gray's Anatomy

• 1995: James Lecesne – Word of Mouth
  • Dan Butler – The Only Thing Worse You Could Have Told Me
  • Danny Hoch – Some People
  • Avi Hoffman – Too Jewish?
  • Lisa Kron – 101 Humiliating Stories

• 1996: Mary Louise Wilson – Full Gallop
  • Andrea Martin – Nude Nude Totally Nude
  • Karen Trott – Springhill Singing Disaster

• 1997: Fiona Shaw – The Waste Land
  • Eve Ensler – The Vagina Monologues
  • Eddie Izzard – Eddie Izzard
  • Roger Guenveur Smith – A Huey P. Newton Story
  • Julia Sweeney – Julia Sweeney's God Said "Ha!"

• 1998: John Leguizamo – Freak
  • Lewis Black – Black Humor
  • Danny Hoch – Jails, Hospitals & Hip-Hop

• 1999: David Hare – Via Dolorosa
  • Will Bond – Bob
  • Aviva Jane Carlin – Jodie's Body
  • Alexander H. Cohen – Star Billing
  • Lisa Kron – 2.5 Minute Ride
  • Laurence Luckinbill – Clarence Darrow Tonight!

2000s

• 2000: Dame Edna Everage – Dame Edna: The Royal Tour
  • Mark Linn-Baker – Chesapeake
  • Mark Setlock – Fully Committed
  • Marc Wolf – Another American: Asking and Telling
  • Spalding Gray – Morning, Noon and Night
  • Olympia Dukakis – Rose

• 2001: Pamela Gien – The Syringa Tree
  • Eric Bogosian – Wake Up and Smell the Coffee
  • Bette Bourne – Resident Alien
  • Brian d'Arcy James – The Good Thief
  • Sarah Jones – Surface Transit
  • Ruben Santiago-Hudson – Lackawanna Blues

• 2002: Elaine Stritch – Elaine Stritch At Liberty
  • Dave Gorman – Are You Dave Gorman?
  • Charles Nelson Reilly – Save It for the Stage: The Life of Reilly
  • Reno – Rebel Without a Pause
  • T. Ryder Smith – Underneath the Lintel

• 2003: Tovah Feldshuh – Golda's Balcony
  • Ricky Jay – Ricky Jay: On the Stem
  • Priscilla Lopez – Class Mother '68
  • Charlayne Woodard – In Real Life
  • Barbara Cook – Mostly Sondheim
  • Frank Gorshin – Say Goodnight, Gracie

• 2004: Jefferson Mays – I Am My Own Wife
  • Ben Gazzara – Nobody Don't Like Yogi
  • Sarah Jones – Bridge and Tunnel
  • Martin Moran – The Tricky Part
  • Will Power – Flow
  • Barbara Cook – Barbara Cook's Broadway!

• 2005: Billy Crystal – 700 Sundays
  • Dave Gorman – Dave Gorman's Googlewhack Adventure
  • Tim Miller – Us
  • James Urbaniak – Thom Pain (based on nothing)
  • Dame Edna Everage – Dame Edna: Back with a Vengeance
  • Jackie Mason – Jackie Mason: Freshly Squeezed

• 2006: Antony Sher – Primo
  • Judy Gold – 25 Questions for a Jewish Mother
  • Marga Gomez – Los Big Names
  • Jon Peterson – George M. Cohan Tonight!
  • Janis Stevens – Vivien
  • Michael Winther – Songs from an Unmade Bed

• 2007: Vanessa Redgrave – The Year of Magical Thinking
  • Iris Bahr – Dai (enough)
  • Ed Harris – Wrecks
  • Capathia Jenkins – (mis)Understanding Mammy: The Hattie McDaniel Story
  • Anna Manahan – Sisters
  • Nilaja Sun – No Child...

• 2008: Laurence Fishburne – Thurgood
  • Kris Anderson – Dixie's Tupperware Party
  • Stephen Lang – Beyond Glory
  • April Yvette Thompson – Liberty City

• 2009: Lorenzo Pisoni – Humor Abuse
  • Mike Birbiglia – Sleepwalk With Me
  • Frank Blocker – Southern Gothic Novel
  • Michael Laurence – Krapp, 39
  • Matt Sax – Clay
  • Campbell Scott – The Atheist

2010s

• 2010: Jim Brochu – Zero Hour
  • Theodore Bikel – Sholom Aleichem: Laughter Through Tears
  • Colman Domingo – A Boy and his Soul
  • Judith Ivey – The Lady With All the Answers
  • Anna Deavere Smith – Let Me Down Easy
  • Carrie Fisher – Wishful Drinking

• 2011: John Leguizamo – Ghetto Klown
  • Daniel Beaty – Through the Night
  • Joanna Tope – The Promise
  • Juliette Jeffers – Batman and Robin in the Boogie Down
  • Mike Birbiglia – Mike Birbiglia's My Girlfriend's Boyfriend
  • Colin Quinn – Colin Quinn: Long Story Short

• 2012: Cillian Murphy – Misterman
  • Baba Brinkman – The Rap Guide to Evolution
  • Suli Holum – Chimera
  • Jeff Key – The Eyes of Babylon
  • Denis O'Hare – An Iliad
  • Stephen Spinella – An Iliad

External links

• Official Drama Desk Award website