Tony Award for Best Featured Actor in a Play
The Tony Award for Best Featured 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 supporting roles in a Broadway play. 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 Actor, Supporting or Featured (Dramatic). It was first presented to Arthur Kennedy at the 3rd Tony Awards for his portrayal of Biff Loman in Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman. Before 1956, nominees' names were not made public; the change was made by the awards committee to "have a greater impact on theatregoers".
Frank Langella holds the record for having the most wins in this category, with a total of two; he is the only person to win the award more than once. Richard Roma in Glengarry Glen Ross, Phil Hogan in A Moon for the Misbegotten, and Mason Marzac in Take Me Out are the only characters to take the award multiple times, all winning twice.
Winners and nominees
indicates the winner
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1940s
1950s
1960s
1970s
1980s
1990s
2000s
2010s
2020s
Statistics
Most wins
- 2 wins
Most nominations
- 3 nominations
- 2 nominations
- Tom Aldredge
- Reed Birney
- Philip Bosco
- Larry Bryggman
- Billy Crudup
- John Glover
- Michael Gough
- David Alan Grier
- George Grizzard
- John Benjamin Hickey
- Željko Ivanek
- Nathan Lane
- Frank Langella
- Walter Matthau
- Biff McGuire
- Arian Moayed
- Zakes Mokae
- Brían F. O'Byrne
- Edward Petherbridge
- Roger Robinson
- Tony Shalhoub
- Brandon Uranowitz
- Courtney B. Vance
- Dick Anthony Williams
Character win total
- 2 wins
- Phil Hogan from A Moon for the Misbegotten
- Richard Roma from Glengarry Glen Ross
- Mason Marzac from Take Me Out
Character nomination total
- 3 nominations
- Shelley Levene from Glengarry Glen Ross
- Biff Loman from Death of a Salesman
- James Tyrone, Jr. from Long Day's Journey into Night
- 2 nominations
- Homer Bolton from Morning's at Seven
- Horace Giddens from The Little Foxes
- Torvald Helmer from A Doll's House
- Phil Hogan from A Moon for the Misbegotten
- Chris Keller from All My Sons
- Darren Lemming from Take Me Out
- Larry from Burn This
- Lenny from The Homecoming
- Mason Marzac from Take Me Out
- Richard Roma from Glengarry Glen Ross
- Edmund Tyrone from Long Day's Journey into Night
Productions with multiple nominations
boldface=Winner
- Big Fish, Little Fish – Martin Gabel and George Grizzard
- The Subject Was Roses – Jack Albertson and Martin Sheen
- Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead – Paul Hecht, Brian Murray, and John Wood
- Vivat! Vivat Regina! – Douglas Rain and Lee Richardson
- The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby – Edward Petherbridge and David Threlfall
- Brighton Beach Memoirs – Matthew Broderick and Željko Ivanek
- Glengarry Glen Ross – Joe Mantegna and Robert Prosky
- Loot – Charles Keating and Joseph Maher
- The Grapes of Wrath – Terry Kinney and Gary Sinise
- Two Trains Running – Laurence Fishburne and Roscoe Lee Browne
- Angels in America: Millennium Approaches – Joe Mantello and Stephen Spinella
- Angels in America: Perestroika – David Marshall Grant and Jeffrey Wright
- Love! Valour! Compassion! – Stephen Bogardus, John Glover and Anthony Heald
- Seven Guitars – Roger Robinson and Ruben Santiago-Hudson
- The Beauty Queen of Leenane – Tom Murphy and Brían F. O'Byrne
- Death of a Salesman – Kevin Anderson and Howard Witt
- Dirty Blonde – Kevin Chamberlin and Bob Stillman
- Proof – Larry Bryggman and Ben Shenkman
- Morning's at Seven – William Biff McGuire and Stephen Tobolowsky
- Long Day's Journey into Night – Philip Seymour Hoffman and Robert Sean Leonard
- Take Me Out – Denis O'Hare and Daniel Sunjata
- Glengarry Glen Ross – Alan Alda, Gordon Clapp and Liev Schreiber
- Awake and Sing! – Mark Ruffalo and Pablo Schreiber
- The Coast of Utopia – Billy Crudup and Ethan Hawke
- Radio Golf – Anthony Chisholm and John Earl Jelks
- The Seafarer – Conleth Hill and Jim Norton
- The Norman Conquests – Stephen Mangan and Paul Ritter
- Golden Boy – Danny Burstein and Tony Shalhoub
- Twelfth Night – Paul Chahidi, Stephen Fry and Mark Rylance
- Lobby Hero – Michael Cera and Brian Tyree Henry
- The Inheritance – John Benjamin Hickey and Paul Hilton
- Slave Play – Ato Blankson-Wood and James Cusati-Moyer
- Take Me Out – Jesse Tyler Ferguson, Michael Oberholtzer and Jesse Williams
- Stereophonic – Will Brill, Eli Gelb and Tom Pecinka
Multiple awards and nominations
- Actors who have been nominated multiple times in any acting categories
Trivia
- A supporting actor in each of Neil Simon's Eugene trilogy (Brighton Beach Memoirs, Biloxi Blues and Broadway Bound) has taken the Tony.
- Featured actors in both parts of the original production and the 2018 revival of Tony Kushner's Angels in America: A Gay Fantasia on National Themes series have won the award.
- Matthew Broderick currently holds the record for the youngest person to ever receive this award, at 21 years old.
- Roy Dotrice currently holds the record for the oldest person to ever receive this award, at 77 years old.
See also
- Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Play
- Tony Award for Best Featured Actor in a Musical
- Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Musical
- Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Featured Actor in a Play
- Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Featured Performance in a Play
- Laurence Olivier Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role
- List of Tony Award-nominated productions