Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Actor in a Play
Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Actor | |
---|---|
Awarded for | Outstanding Actor 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 Actor 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 Actor in a Play, along with Outstanding Actress in a Play, were replaced in 2023 with the gender neutral category of Outstanding Lead Performance in a Play.
Winners and nominees
1970s
Year | Actor | Play | Character |
---|---|---|---|
1975 | |||
Anthony Hopkins | Equus | Dysart | |
Roy Dotrice | Brief Lives | John Aubrey | |
Peter Firth | Equus | Alan Strang | |
Charles Grodin | Same Time, Next Year | George | |
John Kani | Sizwe Banzi Is Dead | Styles / Buntu | |
The Island | John | ||
Alec McCowen | The Misanthrope | Alceste | |
Richard Monette | Hosanna | Hosanna | |
Tony Musante | P.S. Your Cat Is Dead | Vito | |
Winston Ntshona | The Island | Winston | |
Donald Sinden | London Assurance | Sir Harcourt Courtly | |
1976 | |||
John Wood | Travesties | Henry Carr | |
Peter Evans | Streamers | Richie | |
Ben Gazzara | Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? | George | |
Richard Kiley | The Heiress | Dr. Austin Sloper | |
Frank Quinn | Lamppost Reunion | Mac | |
Louis Zorich | They Knew What They Wanted | Tony | |
1977 | |||
Al Pacino | The Basic Training of Pavlo Hummel | Pavlo Hummel | |
Martin Balsam | Cold Storage | Joseph Parmigian | |
Richard Chamberlain | The Night of the Iguana | Rev. Shannon | |
Tom Courtenay | Otherwise Engaged | Simon | |
Robert Duvall | American Buffalo | Walter Cole | |
Fred Gwynne | A Texas Trilogy | Colonel J. C. Kinkaid | |
John Heard | G.R. Point | Micah | |
Jonathan Pryce | Comedians | Gethin Price | |
1978 | |||
Barnard Hughes | Da | Da | |
Hume Cronyn | The Gin Game | Weller Martin | |
Judd Hirsch | Chapter Two | George | |
James Earl Jones | Paul Robeson | Paul Robeson | |
Frank Langella | Dracula | Dracula | |
Brian Murray | Da | Charlie Now | |
1979 | |||
Philip Anglim | The Elephant Man | John Merrick | |
Tom Aldredge | On Golden Pond | Norman Thayer Jr. | |
Richard Chamberlain | Fathers and Sons | Wild Bill Hickok | |
Tom Conti | Whose Life is It Anyway? | Ken Harrison | |
Donal Donnelly | Faith Healer | Frank Hardy | |
Jack Lemmon | Tribute | Scottie Templeton |
1980s
Year | Actor | Play | Character |
---|---|---|---|
1980 | |||
John Rubinstein | Children of a Lesser God | James Leeds | |
F. Murray Abraham | Teibele and Her Demon | Alchonon | |
Philip Bosco | Major Barbara | Andrew Undershaft | |
Charles Brown | Home | Cephus Miles | |
Gerald Hiken | Strider | Strider | |
Judd Hirsch | Talley's Folly | Matt Friedman | |
1981 | |||
Ian McKellen | Amadeus | Antonio Salieri | |
Tim Curry | Amadeus | Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart | |
John Heard | The Chekhov Sketchbook | Various Characters | |
Derek Jacobi | The Suicide | Semyon Semyonovich Podsekalnikov | |
Milo O'Shea | Mass Appeal | Tim Farley | |
Remak Ramsay | The Winslow Boy | Sir Robert Morton | |
1982 | |||
Christopher Plummer | Othello | Iago | |
Bob Gunton | How I Got That Story | The Historical Event | |
Zakes Mokae | "Master Harold"...and the Boys | Sam | |
Paul Rogers | The Dresser | Sir | |
Robert Stattel | King Lear | Edgar | |
1983 | |||
Harvey Fierstein | Torch Song Trilogy | Arnold Beckoff | |
Matthew Broderick | Torch Song Trilogy | David | |
Jeff Daniels | Johnny Got His Gun | Joe Bonham | |
John Malkovich | True West | Lee | |
Remak Ramsay | Quartermaine's Terms | St. John Quartermaine | |
John Rubinstein | The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial | Barney Greenwald | |
James Russo | Extremities | Raul | |
1984 | |||
Dustin Hoffman | Death of a Salesman | Willy Loman | |
Rex Harrison | Heartbreak House | Captain Shotover | |
Jeremy Irons | The Real Thing | Henry | |
David McCallum | The Philanthropist | Philip | |
Donald Moffat | Play Memory | Cam MacMillan | |
Al Pacino | American Buffalo | Walter Cole | |
1985 | |||
John Lithgow | Requiem for a Heavyweight | Harlan "Mountain" McClintock | |
Jim Dale | A Day in the Death of Joe Egg | Bri | |
Anthony Heald | Digby | Digby Merton | |
The Foreigner | Charlie | ||
Jonathan Hogan | As Is | Rich | |
Derek Jacobi | Cyrano de Bergerac | Cyrano de Bergerac | |
Much Ado About Nothing | Benedick | ||
Patrick McGoohan | Pack of Lies | Stewart | |
Jonathan Pryce | Accidental Death of an Anarchist | The Fool | |
1986 | |||
Ed Harris | Precious Sons | Fred | |
Jeff Daniels | Lemon Sky | Alan | |
Kevin Kline | Hamlet | Prince Hamlet | |
Jack Lemmon | Long Day's Journey into Night | James Tyrone, Sr. | |
John Mahoney | The House of Blue Leaves | Artie Shaughnessy | |
Roshan Seth | A Map of the World | Victor Mehta | |
1987 | |||
James Earl Jones | Fences | Troy Maxson | |
Don Bloomfield | Lily Dale | Horace Robedaux | |
Morgan Freeman | Driving Miss Daisy | Hoke Coleburn | |
Victor Garber | You Never Can Tell | Dr. Valentine | |
Ian McKellen | Wild Honey | Mikhail Platonov | |
Alan Rickman | Les Liaisons Dangereuses | Le Vicomte de Valmont | |
1988 | |||
Ron Silver | Speed-the-Plow | Charlie Fox | |
Derek Jacobi | Breaking the Code | Alan Turing | |
Delroy Lindo | Joe Turner's Come and Gone | Herald Loomis | |
John Lithgow | M. Butterfly | Rene Gallimard | |
John Malkovich | Burn This | Pale | |
Joe Mantegna | Speed-the-Plow | Gould | |
1989 | |||
Philip Bosco | Lend Me a Tenor | Saunders | |
Mikhail Baryshnikov | Metamorphosis | Gregor Samsa | |
Niall Buggy | Aristocrats | Casimir | |
Peter Friedman | The Heidi Chronicles | Scoop | |
John Kavanagh | Juno and the Paycock | Joxer Daly | |
Stephen McHattie | Ghetto | Kittel | |
Paul Provenza | Only Kidding! | Jerry Goldstein |
1990s
2000s
2010s
2020s
Year | Actor | Play | Character |
---|---|---|---|
2020 | |||
Edmund Donovan | Greater Clements | Joe | |
Charles Busch | The Confession of Lily Dare | Lily Dare | |
Raúl Esparza | Seared | Harry | |
Francis Jue | Cambodian Rock Band | Duch | |
Triney Sandoval | 72 Miles to Go... | Billy | |
Kyle Soller | The Inheritance | Eric Glass | |
2021 | No awards: New York theatres shuttered, March 2020 to September 2021, due to the COVID-19 pandemic in New York City[1] | ||
2022 | |||
Ruben Santiago-Hudson | Lackawanna Blues | Various | |
Brandon J. Dirden | Skeleton Crew | Reggie | |
Jesse Tyler Ferguson | Take Me Out | Mason Marzac | |
Jacob Ming-Trent | Merry Wives | Falstaff | |
John Douglas Thompson | The Merchant of Venice | Shylock |
Multiple wins
- 3 wins
- 2 wins
See also
References
- ^ Evans, Greg (2021-05-05). "Broadway To Reopen Sept. 14, Says Gov. Andrew Cuomo; Broadway League "Cautiously Optimistic"". Deadline Hollywood. Archived from the original on 2023-06-02. Retrieved 2023-12-03.
External links
- v
- t
- e
- Anthony Hopkins (1975)
- John Wood (1976)
- Al Pacino (1977)
- Barnard Hughes (1978)
- Philip Anglim (1979)
- John Rubinstein (1980)
- Ian McKellen (1981)
- Christopher Plummer (1982)
- Harvey Fierstein (1983)
- Dustin Hoffman (1984)
- John Lithgow (1985)
- Ed Harris (1986)
- James Earl Jones (1987)
- Ron Silver (1988)
- Philip Bosco (1989)
- Nathan Lane (1990)
- Ron Rifkin (1991)
- Brian Bedford (1992)
- Ron Leibman (1993)
- Brian Bedford (1994)
- Ralph Fiennes (1995)
- Frank Langella (1996)
- David Morse / Christopher Plummer (1997)
- Anthony LaPaglia (1998)
- Brian Dennehy (1999)
- Stephen Dillane (2000)
- Richard Easton (2001)
- Alan Bates (2002)
- Eddie Izzard (2003)
- Kevin Kline (2004)
- Brían F. O'Byrne (2005)
- Richard Griffiths (2006)
- Frank Langella (2007)
- Mark Rylance (2008)
- Geoffrey Rush (2009)
- Liev Schreiber (2010)
- Bobby Cannavale (2011)
- James Corden (2012)
- Tracy Letts (2013)
- Bryan Cranston (2014)
- Alex Sharp (2015)
- Frank Langella (2016)
- Kevin Kline (2017)
- Andrew Garfield (2018)
- Jay O. Sanders (2019)
- Edmund Donovan (2020)
- No Award (2021)
- Ruben Santiago-Hudson (2022)