| Tony Award for Best Play | |
|---|---|
| Awarded for | Best Play |
| Location | New York City |
| Presented by | American Theatre Wing The Broadway League |
| Currently held by | Leopoldstadt by Tom Stoppard (2023) |
| Website | TonyAwards.com |
The Tony Award for Best Play (formally, the Antoinette Perry Award for Excellence in Theatre) is an annual award given to the best new (non-musical) play on Broadway, as determined by Tony Award voters. There was no award in the Tonys' first year. The award goes to the authors and the producers of the play. Plays that have appeared in previous Broadway productions are instead eligible for Best Revival of a Play.
Legend:
† marks winners of the Pulitzer Prize for Drama[1]
* marks finalists of the Pulitzer Prize for Drama[1]
| Year | Production | Author |
|---|---|---|
| 1948 2nd Tony Awards | ||
| Mister Roberts | Thomas Heggen & Joshua Logan | |
| 1949 3rd Tony Awards | ||
| Death of a Salesman † | Arthur Miller |
| Year | Production | Author | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2020 74th Tony Awards | |||
| The Inheritance[3] | Matthew Lopez | ||
| Grand Horizons | Bess Wohl | ||
| Sea Wall/A Life | Simon Stephens and Nick Payne | ||
| Slave Play | Jeremy O. Harris | ||
| The Sound Inside | Adam Rapp | ||
| 2021 Ceremony not held |
— | ||
| 2022 75th Tony Awards | |||
| The Lehman Trilogy[4] | Stefano Massini | ||
| Clyde's | Lynn Nottage | ||
| Hangmen | Martin McDonagh | ||
| The Minutes* | Tracy Letts | ||
| Skeleton Crew | Dominique Morisseau | ||
| 2023 76th Tony Awards | |||
| Leopoldstadt | Tom Stoppard | ||
| Ain't No Mo' | Jordan E. Cooper | ||
| Between Riverside and Crazy † | Stephen Adly Guirgis | ||
| Cost of Living † | Martyna Majok | ||
| Fat Ham † | James Ijames | ||
British writer Tom Stoppard has won this award five times, more than any other playwright. Only seven other writers (Arthur Miller, Terrence McNally, Tony Kushner, Edward Albee, Neil Simon, Yasmina Reza and Peter Shaffer) have won the award more than once, each winning twice.
With ten nominations, Neil Simon has been nominated for the award more than any other playwright. August Wilson, with nine nominations, comes in second, followed by Tom Stoppard (eight nominations), Edward Albee (six nominations), Arthur Miller (five nominations), and Martin McDonagh (five nominations).
In 1994, Tony Kushner became the first playwright to win consecutive Tony Awards for his two-part Angels in America: A Gay Fantasia on National Themes. Terrence McNally repeated this feat the following two years with his plays Love! Valour! Compassion! and Master Class.