| Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Featured Actress | |
|---|---|
| Awarded for | Outstanding Featured Actress in a Play |
| Location | New York City |
| Country | United States |
| Presented by | Drama Desk |
| First awarded | 1975 |
| Last awarded | 2022 |
| Website | dramadesk.org (defunct) |
The Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Featured Actress in a Play was an annual award presented by Drama Desk in recognition of achievements in the theatre across collective Broadway, off-Broadway and off-off-Broadway productions in New York City. The award was one of eight new acting awards first presented in 1975, when Drama Desk retired an earlier award that had made no distinction between work in plays and musicals, nor between actors and actresses, nor between lead performers and featured performers.
After the 2022 ceremony, all eight acting categories introduced in 1975 were retired. The award for Outstanding Featured Actress in a Play, along with Outstanding Featured Actor in a Play, were replaced in 2023 with the gender neutral category of Outstanding Featured Performance in a Play.
| Year | Actress | Play | Character |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2000 | |||
| Marylouise Burke | Fuddy Meers | Gertie | |
| Jillian Armenante | The Cider House Rules, Part One | Melony | |
| Seana Kofoed | An Experiment with an Air Pump | Isobel Bridie | |
| Phyllis Newman | The Moment When | Paula | |
| Çiğdem Onat | The Time of the Cuckoo | Signora Fioria | |
| Amy Sedaris | The Country Club | Froggy | |
| 2001 | |||
| Viola Davis | King Hedley II | Tonya | |
| Anita Durst | The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant | Marlene | |
| Barbara Jefford | Coriolanus | Volumnia | |
| Marthe Keller | Judgment at Nuremberg | Mrs. Bertholt | |
| Marian Seldes | The Butterfly Collection | Margaret | |
| Robin Weigert | Madame Melville | Ruth | |
| 2002 | |||
| Katie Finneran | Noises Off | Brooke Ashton | |
| Jennifer Coolidge | The Women | Edith / Mrs. Phelps Potter | |
| Kathleen Doyle | Kilt | Mary | |
| Linda Emond | Homebody/Kabul | The Homebody | |
| Elizabeth Franz | Morning's at Seven | Aaronetta Gibbs | |
| Kathleen Widdoes | Franny's Way | Marjorie | |
| 2003 | |||
| Lynn Redgrave | Talking Heads | Miss Fozzard | |
| Christine Ebersole | Talking Heads | Irene | |
| Jan Maxwell | My Old Lady | Chloe Giffard | |
| Helen McCrory | Uncle Vanya | Elena | |
| Nancy Opel | Polish Joke | Various Characters | |
| Jeanine Serralles | Hold Please | Jessica | |
| 2004 | |||
| Audra McDonald | A Raisin in the Sun | Ruth Younger | |
| Jayne Houdyshell | Well | Ann Kron | |
| Mikel Sarah Lambert | The Daughter-in-Law | Mrs. Gascoyne | |
| Margo Martindale | Cat on a Hot Tin Roof | Big Mama | |
| Jan Maxwell | Sixteen Wounded | Sonya | |
| Mary Louise Wilson | The Beard of Avon | Queen Elizabeth I | |
| 2005 | |||
| Adriane Lenox | Doubt | Mrs. Miller | |
| Julie Halston | White Chocolate | Vivian Beale Somerset | |
| Portia | McReele | Opal | |
| Lily Rabe | Steel Magnolias | Annelle | |
| Lee Roy Rogers | Orson's Shadow | Vivien Leigh | |
| Mary Testa | String of Pearls | Various Characters | |
| 2006 | |||
| Frances de la Tour | The History Boys | Mrs. Lintott | |
| Lisa Emery | Abigail's Party | Susan | |
| Judith Hawking | A Soldier's Wife | Florence | |
| Michele Pawk | The Paris Letter | Katie | |
| Lynn Redgrave | The Constant Wife | Mrs. Culver | |
| Marian Seldes | Dedication or The Stuff of Dreams | Annabelle Willard | |
| 2007 | |||
| Martha Plimpton | The Coast of Utopia | Various Characters | |
| Myriam Acharki | Woyzeck | Marie | |
| Xanthe Elbrick | Coram Boy | Alexander Ashbrook / Aaron | |
| Sarah Nina Hayon | Rearviewmirror | Inez | |
| Jan Maxwell | Coram Boy | Mrs. Lynch | |
| Rita Wolf | The American Pilot | Sarah | |
| 2008 | |||
| Linda Lavin | The New Century | Helene Nadler | |
| Elizabeth Ashley | Dividing the Estate | Stella | |
| Johanna Day | Peter and Jerry | Ann | |
| Zoe Kazan | 100 Saints You Should Know | Abby | |
| Rondi Reed | August: Osage County | Mattie Fae Aiken | |
| Marisa Tomei | Top Girls | Isabella Bird / Joyce / Mrs. Kidd | |
| 2009 | |||
| Angela Lansbury | Blithe Spirit | Madame Arcati | |
| Rebecca Hall | The Cherry Orchard | Varya | |
| Zoe Kazan | The Seagull | Masha | |
| Andrea Martin | Exit the King | Juliette | |
| Carey Mulligan | The Seagull | Nina | |
| Condola Rashād | Ruined | Sophie |
| Year | Actress | Play | Character |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2020 | |||
| Lois Smith | The Inheritance | Margaret | |
| Patrice Johnson Chevannes | runboyrun & In Old Age | Abasiama Ufot | |
| Kristina Poe | Halfway Bitches Go Straight to Heaven | Betty Woods | |
| Belange Rodríguez | The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao | Ybón | |
| Elizabeth Rodriguez | Halfway Bitches Go Straight to Heaven | Miss Rivera | |
| 2021 | No awards: New York theatres shuttered, March 2020 to September 2021, due to the COVID-19 pandemic in New York City[1] | ||
| 2022 | |||
| Francis Benhamou | Prayer for the French Republic | Elodie | |
| Stephanie Berry | On Sugarland | Evelyn | |
| Sonnie Brown | what you are now | Chantrea | |
| Page Leong | Out of Time | Woman | |
| Kenita R. Miller | for colored girls who have considered suicide / when the rainbow is enuf | Lady in Red | |
| Kara Young | Clyde's | Letitia | |