Tony Award for Best Actor in a Play

The Tony Award for Best Performance by a Leading Actor in a Play is an honor presented at the Tony Awards, a ceremony established in 1947 as the Antoinette Perry Awards for Excellence in Theatre, to actors for quality leading roles in a Broadway play. The awards are named after Antoinette Perry, an American actress who died in 1946.
Honors in several categories are presented at the ceremony annually by the Tony Award Productions, a joint venture of The Broadway League and the American Theatre Wing, to "honor the best performances and stage productions of the previous year."
The award was originally called the Tony Award for Actors—Play. It was first presented to José Ferrer and Fredric March at the 1st Tony Awards for their portrayals of Cyrano De Bergerac and Clinton Jones in Cyrano de Bergerac and Years Ago, respectively. Before 1956, nominees' names were not made public; the change was made by the awards committee to "have a greater impact on theatregoers".
Nine actors hold the record for having the most wins in this category, with a total of two. Brian Bedford and Jason Robards are tied with the most nominations, with a total of seven. George in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? is the character to take the award the most times, winning three times.

WWW tonyawards.com/en_US/inde...

Winners and nominees

2010s

Statistics

Most wins

; 2 wins

Character win total

; 3 wins

George from Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

; 2 wins

Henry from The Real Thing
James Tyrone Sr. from Long Day's Journey into Night
Prior Walter from Angels in America
Troy Maxson from ''Fences''

Productions with multiple nominations

boldface=winnerLook Homeward, Angel – Alizwa Mleni and Anthony PerkinsThe Best Man – Melvyn Douglas and Lee TracyPhiladelphia, Here I Come! – Patrick Bedford and Donal Donnelly Home – John Gielgud and Ralph RichardsonUncle Vanya – George C. Scott and Nicol WilliamsonSizwe Banzi is Dead and The Island – John Kani and Winston Ntshona Amadeus – Ian McKellen and Tim CurryLend Me A Tenor – Philip Bosco and Victor GarberTrue West – Philip Seymour Hoffman and John C. ReillyStones In His Pockets – Sean Campion and Conleth HillGod of Carnage – Jeff Daniels and James GandolfiniSea Wall/A Life – Jake Gyllenhaal and Tom SturridgeThe Lehman Trilogy – Simon Russell Beale, Adam Godley and Adrian LesterTopdog/Underdog – Yahya Abdul-Mateen II and Corey Hawkins

Multiple awards and nominations

; Actors who have been nominated multiple times in any acting categories

Trivia

The lead role of George in Edward Albee's Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? has earned the Tony Award for three different actors who have performed the character:
* 1963 – Arthur Hill
* 2005 – Bill Irwin
* 2013 – Tracy Letts
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
Prior Walter in Tony Kushner's Angels in America
* 1994 – Stephen Spinella
* 2018 – Andrew Garfield
** Spinella won this category in 1994 for playing Prior Walter in 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.
In 2025, Cole Escola became the first non-binary actor to win the award, for their performance of Mary Todd Lincoln in Oh, Mary!.
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.
Donald Moffat was nominated for his performances in two different productions, Right You Are (If You Think You Are) and The Wild Duck, at the 21st Tony Awards.
The youngest winner in this acting category is Alex Sharp. The oldest is Frank Langella.
Actors have won Tony Awards for both Best Actor in a Play and Best Actress in a Play for playing Mary Todd Lincoln: Cole Escola in Oh, Mary! and Julie Harris in The Last of Mrs. Lincoln.