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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1940s

1950s

1960s

1970s

1980s

1990s

2000s

2010s

2020s

Statistics

Most wins

• Alan Bates • 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

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

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Multiple awards and nominations

Trivia