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.