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.

Winners and nominees
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Most wins
• Alan Bates
 * 2 wins

• Bryan Cranston

• Brian Dennehy

• José Ferrer

• Judd Hirsch

• James Earl Jones

• Frank Langella

• Fredric March

• Mark Rylance

Most nominations
• ; 7 nominations

• Brian Bedford

• Jason Robards

• ; 6 nominations

• Christopher Plummer

• ; 5 nominations

• Frank Langella

• ; 4 nominations

• Philip Bosco

• Hume Cronyn

• James Earl Jones

• Donald Pleasence

• Mark Rylance

• George C. Scott

• ; 3 nominations

• Jeff Daniels

• Ben Gazzara

• Judd Hirsch

• John Lithgow

• Fredric March

• Alec McCowen

• Brían F. O'Byrne

• Ralph Richardson

• Liev Schreiber

• ; 2 nominations

• Alan Bates

• Richard Burton

• Gabriel Byrne

• Tom Courtenay

• Bryan Cranston

• Billy Crudup

• Jim Dale

• Brian Dennehy

• José Ferrer

• Ralph Fiennes

• Albert Finney

• Henry Fonda

• John Gielgud

• Rex Harrison

• Corey Hawkins

• Philip Seymour Hoffman

• Wilfrid Hyde-White

• Bill Irwin

• Derek Jacobi

• Kevin Kline

• Alfred Lunt

• Jack Lemmon

• Jefferson Mays

• Ian McKellen

• Alfred Molina

• Zero Mostel

• Liam Neeson

• Milo O'Shea

• Al Pacino

• Roger Rees

• Alan Rickman

• Cyril Ritchard

• Tom Sturridge

• Denzel Washington

• Nicol Williamson

• John Wood

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

Character nomination total
• ; 4 nominations

• Eddie Carbone from A View from the Bridge

• George from Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

• James Tyrone Sr. from Long Day's Journey into Night

• Willy Loman from Death of a Salesman

• ; 3 nominations

• Bri from A Day in the Death of Joe Egg

• Hamlet from Hamlet

• Henry Drummond from Inherit the Wind

• John Merrick from The Elephant Man

• ; 2 nominations

• Antonio Salieri from Amadeus

• Charlie Fox from Speed-the-Plow

• Father Brendan Flynn from Doubt: A Parable

• Henry from The Real Thing

• Henry Carr from Travesties

• James Tyrone Jr. from A Moon for the Misbegotten

• Le Vicomte de Valmont from Les Liaisons Dangereuses

• Lincoln from Topdog/Underdog

• Mikhail lvovich Astrov from Uncle Vanya

• Paul from Six Degrees of Separation

• President Ari Hockstader from The Best Man

• Prior Walter from Angels in America

• Shylock from The Merchant of Venice

• Theodore "Hickey" Hickman from The Iceman Cometh

• Tobias from A Delicate Balance

• Tom Sergeant from Skylight

• Troy Maxson from Fences

Productions with multiple nominations
boldface=winner
 * Look Homeward, Angel – Alizwa Mleni and Anthony Perkins
 * The Best Man – Melvyn Douglas and Lee Tracy
 * Philadelphia, Here I Come! – Patrick Bedford and Donal Donnelly (jointly)
 * Home – John Gielgud and Ralph Richardson
 * Uncle Vanya – George C. Scott and Nicol Williamson
 * Sizwe Banzi is Dead and The Island – John Kani and Winston Ntshona (jointly)
 * Amadeus – Ian McKellen and Tim Curry
 * Lend Me A Tenor – Philip Bosco and Victor Garber
 * True West – Philip Seymour Hoffman and John C. Reilly
 * Stones In His Pockets – Sean Campion and Conleth Hill
 * God of Carnage – Jeff Daniels and James Gandolfini
 * Sea Wall/A Life – Jake Gyllenhaal and Tom Sturridge
 * The Lehman Trilogy – Simon Russell Beale, Adam Godley and Adrian Lester
 * Topdog/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.
 * 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 (age 26). The oldest is Frank Langella (age 78).