Tony Award for Best Actor in a Play

The Tony Award for Best Performance by a Leading Actor in a Play presented since 1947, is awarded to actors in productions of new or revival plays.

Award winners

1940s

• 1947: José Ferrer – Cyrano de Bergerac and Fredric March – Years Ago
  • No nominees

• 1948: Henry Fonda – Mister Roberts, Paul Kelly – Command Decision and Basil Rathbone – The Heiress
  • No nominees

• 1949: Rex Harrison – Anne of the Thousand Days
  • No nominees

1950s

• 1950: Sidney Blackmer – Come Back, Little Sheba
  • No nominees

• 1951: Claude Rains – Darkness at Noon
  • No nominees

• 1952: José Ferrer – The Shrike
  • No nominees

• 1953: Tom Ewell – The Seven Year Itch
  • No nominees

• 1954: David Wayne – The Teahouse of the August Moon
  • No nominees

• 1955: Alfred Lunt – Quadrille
  • No nominees

• 1956: Paul Muni – Inherit the Wind as Henry Drummond
  • Ben Gazzara – A Hatful of Rain
  • Boris Karloff – The Lark
  • Michael Redgrave – Tiger at the Gates
  • Edward G. Robinson – Middle of the Night

• 1957: Fredric March – Long Day's Journey into Night as James Tyrone, Sr.
  • Maurice Evans – The Apple Cart
  • Wilfrid Hyde-White – The Reluctant Debutante
  • Eric Portman – Separate Tables
  • Ralph Richardson – The Waltz of the Toreadors
  • Cyril Ritchard – Visit to a Small Planet

• 1958: Ralph Bellamy – Sunrise at Campobello as Franklin Delano Roosevelt
  • Richard Burton – Time Remembered
  • Hugh Griffith – Look Homeward, Angel
  • Laurence Olivier – The Entertainer
  • Anthony Perkins – Look Homeward, Angel
  • Peter Ustinov – Romanoff and Juliet
  • Emlyn Williams – A Boy Growing Up

• 1959: Jason Robards – The Disenchanted as Manley Halliday
  • Cedric Hardwicke – A Majority of One
  • Alfred Lunt – The Visit
  • Christopher Plummer – J.B.
  • Cyril Ritchard – The Pleasure of His Company
  • Robert Stephens – Epitaph for George Dillon

1960s

• 1960: Melvyn Douglas – The Best Man as William Russell
  • Lee Tracy – The Best Man as Arthur Hockstader
  • Jason Robards – Toys in the Attic as Julian Berniers
  • Sidney Poitier – A Raisin in the Sun as Walter Lee Younger
  • George C. Scott – The Andersonville Trial as Lt. Col. N. P. Chipman

• 1961: Zero Mostel – Rhinocéros as John
  • Hume Cronyn – Big Fish, Little Fish as Jimmie Luton
  • Sam Levene – The Devil's Advocate as Dr. Aldo Meyer
  • Anthony Quinn – Becket as Henry II

• 1962: Paul Scofield – A Man for All Seasons as Sir Thomas More
  • Fredric March – Gideon as Angel
  • John Mills – Ross as Aircraftman Ross
  • Donald Pleasence – The Caretaker as Davies

• 1963: Arthur Hill – Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? as George
  • Charles Boyer – Lord Pengo as Lord Pengo
  • Paul Ford – Never Too Late as Harry Lambert
  • Bert Lahr – The Beauty Part as Various Characters

• 1964: Alec Guinness – Dylan as Dylan Thomas
  • Richard Burton – Hamlet as Hamlet
  • Albert Finney – Luther as Martin
  • Jason Robards – After the Fall as Quentin

• 1965: Walter Matthau – The Odd Couple as Oscar Madison
  • John Gielgud – Tiny Alice as Julian
  • Donald Pleasence – Poor Bitos as Bitos (Robespieere)
  • Jason Robards – Hughie as "Erie" Smith

• 1966: Hal Holbrook – Mark Twain Tonight as Mark Twain
  • Roland Culver – Ivanov as Pavel Lebedev
  • Donal Donnelly – Philadelphia, Here I Come! as Gareth O'Donnell
  • Patrick Bedford – Philadelphia, Here I Come! as Gareth O'Donnell
  • Nicol Williamson – Inadmissible Evidence as Bill Maitland

• 1967: Paul Rogers – The Homecoming as Max
  • Hume Cronyn – A Delicate Balance as Tobias
  • Donald Madden – Black Comedy as Harold Gorringe
  • Donald Moffat – Right You Are (If You Think You Are) as Laudisi
  • Donald Moffat – The Wild Duck as Hjalmar Ekdal

• 1968: Martin Balsam – You Know I Can't Hear You When the Water's Running as Various Characters
  • Albert Finney – A Day in the Death of Joe Egg as Bri
  • Milo O'Shea – Staircase as Harry C. Leeds
  • Alan Webb – I Never Sang for My Father as Tom Garrison

• 1969: James Earl Jones – The Great White Hope as Jack Jefferson
  • Art Carney – Lovers as Andy Tracey
  • Alec McCowen – Hadrian the Seventh as Fr. William Rolfe
  • Donald Pleasence – The Man in the Glass Booth as Arthur Goldman

1970s

• 1970: Fritz Weaver – Child's Play as Jerome Malley
  • James Coco – The Last of the Red Hot Lovers as Barney Cashman
  • Frank Grimes – Borstal Boy as Young Behan
  • Stacy Keach – Indians as Buffalo Bill

• 1971: Brian Bedford – The School for Wives as Arnolphe
  • John Gielgud – Home as Harry
  • Alec McCowen – The Philanthropist as Philip
  • Ralph Richardson – Home as Jack

• 1972: Cliff Gorman – Lenny as Lenny Bruce
  • Tom Aldredge – Sticks and Bones as Ozzie
  • Donald Pleasence – Wise Child as Mrs. Artminster
  • Jason Robards – The Country Girl as Frank Elgin

• 1973: Alan Bates – Butley as Ben Butley
  • Jack Albertson – The Sunshine Boys as Willie Clark
  • Wilfrid Hyde-White – The Jockey Club Stakes as Marquis of Candover
  • Paul Sorvino – That Championship Season as Phil Romano

• 1974: Michael Moriarty – Find Your Way Home as Julian Weston
  • Zero Mostel – Ulysses in Nighttown as Leopold Bloom
  • Jason Robards – A Moon for the Misbegotten as James Tyrone, Jr.
  • George C. Scott – Uncle Vanya as Mikhail lvovich Astrov
  • Nicol Williamson – Uncle Vanya as Ivan Petrovich Voinitsky

• 1975: John Kani and Winston Ntshona – Sizwe Banzi is Dead and The Island as Various Characters
  • Jim Dale – Scapino! as Scapino
  • Peter Firth – Equus as Alan Strang
  • Henry Fonda – Clarence Darrow as Clarence Darrow
  • Ben Gazzara – Hughie and Duet as "Erie" Smith
  • John Wood – Sherlock Holmes as Sherlock Holmes

• 1976: John Wood – Travesties as Henry Carr
  • Moses Gunn – The Poison Tree as Benjamin Hurspool
  • George C. Scott – Death of a Salesman as Willy Loman
  • Donald Sinden – Habeas Corpus as Arthur Wicksteed

• 1977: Al Pacino – The Basic Training of Pavlo Hummel as Pavlo Hummel
  • Tom Courtenay – Otherwise Engaged as Simon
  • Ben Gazzara – Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? as George
  • Ralph Richardson – No Man's Land as Hirst

• 1978: Barnard Hughes – Da as Da
  • Hume Cronyn – The Gin Game as Weller Martin
  • Frank Langella – Dracula as Dracula
  • Jason Robards – A Touch of the Poet as Cornelius Melody

• 1979: Tom Conti – Whose Life Is It Anyway? as Ken Harrison
  • Philip Anglim – The Elephant Man as John Merrick
  • Jack Lemmon – Tribute as Scottie Templeton
  • Alec McCowen – St. Mark's Gospel as Mark

1980s

• 1980: John Rubinstein – Children of a Lesser God as James Leeds
  • Charles Brown – Home as Cephus Miles
  • Gerald Hiken – Strider as Strider
  • Judd Hirsch – Talley's Folly as Matt Friedman

• 1981: Ian McKellen – Amadeus as Antonio Salieri
  • Tim Curry – Amadeus as Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
  • Roy Dotrice – A Life as Drumm
  • Jack Weston – The Floating Light Bulb as Jerry Wexler

• 1982: Roger Rees – The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby as Nicholas Nickleby
  • Tom Courtenay – The Dresser as Norman
  • Milo O'Shea – Mass Appeal as Father Tim Farley
  • Christopher Plummer – Othello as Iago

• 1983: Harvey Fierstein – Torch Song Trilogy as Arnold Beckoff
  • Jeffrey DeMunn – K2 as Taylor
  • Edward Herrmann – Plenty as Raymond Brock
  • Tony Lo Bianco – A View from the Bridge as Eddie

• 1984: Jeremy Irons – The Real Thing as Henry
  • Calvin Levels – Open Admissions as Calvin Jefferson
  • Rex Harrison – Heartbreak House as Captain Shotover
  • Ian McKellen – Ian McKellen Acting Shakespeare as Performer

• 1985: Derek Jacobi – Much Ado About Nothing as Benedick
  • Jim Dale – A Day in the Death of Joe Egg as Bri
  • Jonathan Hogan – As Is as Rich
  • John Lithgow – Requiem for a Heavyweight as Harlan "Mountain" McClintock

• 1986: Judd Hirsch – I'm Not Rappaport as Nat
  • Hume Cronyn – The Petition as General Sir Edmund Milne
  • Ed Harris – Precious Sons as Fred
  • Jack Lemmon – Long Day's Journey into Night as James Tyrone, Sr.

• 1987: James Earl Jones – Fences as Troy Maxson
  • Philip Bosco – You Never Can Tell as Waiter
  • Richard Kiley – All My Sons as Joe Keller
  • Alan Rickman – Les Liaisons Dangereuses as Le Vicomte de Valmont

• 1988: Ron Silver – Speed-the-Plow as Charlie Fox
  • Derek Jacobi – Breaking the Code as Alan Turing
  • John Lithgow – M. Butterfly as Rene Gallimard
  • Robert Prosky – A Walk in the Woods as Andrey Botvinnik

• 1989: Philip Bosco – Lend Me a Tenor as Saunders
  • Mikhail Baryshnikov – Metamorphosis as Gregor Samsa
  • Victor Garber – Lend Me a Tenor as Max
  • Bill Irwin – Largely New York as The Post-Modern Hoofer

1990s

• 1990: Robert Morse – Tru as Truman Capote
  • Charles S. Dutton – The Piano Lesson as Boy Willie
  • Dustin Hoffman – The Merchant of Venice as Shylock
  • Tom Hulce – A Few Good Men as LTJG Daniel A. Kaffee

• 1991: Nigel Hawthorne – Shadowlands as C.S. Lewis
  • Peter Frechette – Our Country's Good as 2nd Lieutenant Ralph Clark
  • Tom McGowan – La Bête as Valere
  • Courtney B. Vance – Six Degrees of Separation as Paul

• 1992: Judd Hirsch – Conversations with My Father as Eddie
  • Alan Alda – Jake's Women as Jake
  • Alec Baldwin – A Streetcar Named Desire as Stanley Kowalski
  • Brian Bedford – Two Shakespearean Actors as William Charles Macready

• 1993: Ron Leibman – Angels in America: Millennium Approaches as Roy Cohn, et al.
  • K. Todd Freeman – The Song of Jacob Zulu as Jacob Zulu
  • Liam Neeson – Anna Christie as Mat Burke
  • Stephen Rea – Someone Who'll Watch Over Me as Edward

• 1994: Stephen Spinella – Angels in America: Perestroika as Prior Walter
  • Brian Bedford – Timon of Athens as Timon
  • Christopher Plummer – No Man's Land as Spooner
  • Sam Waterston – Abe Lincoln in Illinois as Abraham Lincoln

• 1995: Ralph Fiennes – Hamlet as Hamlet
  • Brian Bedford – The Molière Comedies as Sganarelle
  • Roger Rees – Indiscretions as George
  • Joe Sears – A Tuna Christmas as Various Characters

• 1996: George Grizzard – A Delicate Balance as Tobias
  • Philip Bosco – Moon Over Buffalo as George Hay
  • George C. Scott – Inherit the Wind as Henry Drummond
  • Martin Shaw – An Ideal Husband as Lord Goring

• 1997: Christopher Plummer – Barrymore as John Barrymore
  • Brian Bedford – London Assurance as Sir Harcourt Courtly
  • Michael Gambon – Skylight as Tom Sergeant
  • Antony Sher – Stanley as Stanley

• 1998: Anthony LaPaglia – A View from the Bridge as Eddie
  • Richard Briers – The Chairs as Old Man
  • John Leguizamo – Freak as himself, various
  • Alfred Molina – 'Art' as Yvan

• 1999: Brian Dennehy – Death of a Salesman as Willy Loman
  • Brian F. O'Byrne – The Lonesome West as Valene Connor
  • Corin Redgrave – Not About Nightingales as Bert "Boss" Whalen
  • Kevin Spacey – The Iceman Cometh as Theodore Hickman

2000s

• 2000: Stephen Dillane – The Real Thing as Henry
  • Gabriel Byrne – A Moon for the Misbegotten as James Tyrone, Jr.
  • Philip Seymour Hoffman – True West as Austin (Alternated with Lee)
  • John C. Reilly – True West as Lee (Alternated with Austin)
  • David Suchet – Amadeus as Antonio Salieri

• 2001: Richard Easton – The Invention of Love as A.E. Houseman, aged 77
  • Seán Campion – Stones in His Pockets as Jake Quinn
  • Conleth Hill – Stones in His Pockets as Charlie Conlon
  • Brian Stokes Mitchell – King Hedley II as King
  • Gary Sinise – One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest as Randle P. McMurphy

• 2002: Alan Bates – Fortune's Fool as Vassily Semyonitch Kuzovkin
  • Billy Crudup – The Elephant Man as John Merrick
  • Liam Neeson – The Crucible as John Proctor
  • Alan Rickman – Private Lives as Elyot Chase
  • Jeffrey Wright – Topdog/Underdog as Lincoln

• 2003: Brian Dennehy – Long Day's Journey into Night as James Tyrone, Sr.
  • Brian Bedford – Tartuffe as Orgon
  • Eddie Izzard – A Day in the Death of Joe Egg as Bri
  • Paul Newman – Our Town as Stage Manager
  • Stanley Tucci – Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune as Johnny

• 2004: Jefferson Mays – I Am My Own Wife as Charlotte von Mahlsdorf, et al.
  • Simon Russell Beale – Jumpers as George
  • Kevin Kline – Henry IV (a combination of Part 1 and Part 2) as Sir John Falstaff
  • Frank Langella – Match as Tobi
  • Christopher Plummer – King Lear as King Lear

• 2005: Bill Irwin – Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? as George
  • Philip Bosco – Twelve Angry Men as Juror #3
  • Billy Crudup – The Pillowman as Katurian
  • James Earl Jones – On Golden Pond as Norman Thayer, Jr.
  • Brían F. O'Byrne – Doubt as Father Flynn

• 2006: Richard Griffiths – The History Boys as Hector
  • Ralph Fiennes – Faith Healer as Frank
  • Željko Ivanek – The Caine Mutiny Court Martial as Lt. Com. Phillip Francis Queeg
  • Oliver Platt – Shining City as John
  • David Wilmot – The Lieutenant of Inishmore as Padraic

• 2007: Frank Langella – Frost/Nixon as Richard Nixon
  • Boyd Gaines – Journey's End as Lieut. Osborne
  • Brían F. O'Byrne – The Coast of Utopia as Alexander Herzen
  • Christopher Plummer – Inherit the Wind as Henry Drummond
  • Liev Schreiber – Talk Radio as Barry Champlain

• 2008: Mark Rylance – Boeing Boeing as Robert
  • Ben Daniels – Les Liaisons Dangereuses as Le Vicomte de Valmont
  • Laurence Fishburne – Thurgood as Thurgood Marshall
  • Rufus Sewell – Rock 'n' Roll as Jan
  • Patrick Stewart – Macbeth as Macbeth

• 2009: Geoffrey Rush – Exit the King as King Berenger
  • Jeff Daniels – God of Carnage as Alan
  • Raúl Esparza – Speed-the-Plow as Charlie Fox
  • James Gandolfini – God of Carnage as Michael
  • Thomas Sadoski – reasons to be pretty as Greg

2010s

• 2010: Denzel Washington – Fences as Troy Maxson
  • Jude Law – Hamlet as Hamlet
  • Alfred Molina – Red as Mark Rothko
  • Liev Schreiber – A View from the Bridge as Eddie
  • Christopher Walken – A Behanding in Spokane as Carmichael

• 2011: Mark Rylance in Jerusalem as Johnny "Rooster" Byron
  • Brian Bedford – The Importance of Being Earnest as Lady Bracknell
  • Bobby Cannavale – The Motherfucker with the Hat as Jackie
  • Joe Mantello – The Normal Heart as Ned Weeks
  • Al Pacino – The Merchant of Venice as Shylock

• 2012: James Corden – One Man, Two Guvnors as Francis Henshall
  • James Earl Jones – The Best Man as President Art Hockstader
  • Frank Langella – Man and Boy as Gregor Antonescu
  • John Lithgow – The Columnist as Joseph Alsop
  • Philip Seymour Hoffman – Death of a Salesman as Willy Loman

• 2013:
  • Tom Hanks — Lucky Guy as Mike McAlary
  • Nathan Lane — The Nance as Chauncey
  • Tracy Letts — Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? as George
  • David Hyde Pierce — Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike as Vanya
  • Tom Sturridge — Orphans as Phillip

Award records

• Alan Bates (two)
• Brian Dennehy (two)
• José Ferrer (two)
• Judd Hirsch (two)
• James Earl Jones (two)
• Fredric March (two)
• Mark Rylance (two)

• Jason Robards was nominated seven times for this award, but he won just once (in 1959).
• Brian Bedford was nominated seven times for this award, with one win (in 1971).
• Donald Pleasence was nominated four times, but he never won this award.
• Hume Cronyn was nominated four times, but he never won this award.
• James Earl Jones has been nominated four times for this award.
• Ben Gazzara was nominated three times for this award.
• Donald Moffat was nominated for two different plays in 1967, but he did not win this award for either one of them.

Trivia

• The lead role of George in Edward Albee's Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? has earned the Tony Award for the two different actors who have performed the character:
  • 1963 – Arthur Hill
  • 2005 – Bill Irwin
• Other male roles have produced multiple Tony Award winners: Henry in Tom Stoppard's The Real Thing
  • 1984 – Jeremy Irons
  • 2000 – Stephen Dillane
• James Tyrone, Sr., in Eugene O'Neill's Long Day's Journey into Night
  • 1957 – Fredric March
  • 2003 – Brian Dennehy
• Troy Maxson in August Wilson's Fences
  • 1987 – James Earl Jones
  • 2010 – Denzel Washington
• In addition, Stephen Spinella won the Tony Award in 1994 for Angels in America: Perestroika one year after winning the award for Best Featured Actor in a Play for the same character in Angels in America: Millennium Approaches.
• Actors have won Tony Awards for both Best Actor in a Play and Best Actor in a Musical for playing Cyrano de Bergerac: Jose Ferrer in Cyrano de Bergerac and Christopher Plummer in Cyrano.
• The youngest winner in this acting category was Harvey Fierstein (age 31). The oldest was Frank Langella (age 69).

External links

• Official Tony Awards website