# Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Featured Actor in a Play

The Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Featured 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 Featured Actor in a Play, along with Outstanding Featured Actress in a Play, were replaced in 2023 with the gender neutral category of Outstanding Featured Performance in a Play.

## Winners and nominees
### 1970s

| Year | Actor | Play | Character |
| 1975 |
| 1975 | Frank Langella | Seascape | Leslie |
| 1975 | Louis Beachner | The National Health | Flagg |
| 1975 | Larry Blyden | Absurd Person Singular | Sidney |
| 1975 | David Dukes | Love for Love | Scandal |
| 1975 | David Dukes | Rules of the Game | Guido Venanzi |
| 1975 | Philip Locke | Sherlock Holmes | Professor Moriarty |
| 1975 | Dick Anthony Williams | Black Picture Show | Alexander |
| 1976 |
| 1976 | Judd Hirsch | Knock Knock | Various Characters |
| 1976 | Leonard Cimino | A Memory of Two Mondays | Jim |
| 1976 | Edward Herrmann | Mrs. Warren's Profession | Frank Gardner |
| 1976 | Roy Poole | A Memory of Two Mondays | Gus |
| 1977 |
| 1977 | Bob Dishy | Sly Fox | Abner Truckle |
| 1977 | Anthony Call | The Trip Back Down | Super Joe Weller |
| 1977 | Héctor Elizondo | Sly Fox | Simon Able |
| 1977 | Michael Lombard | Otherwise Engaged | Artemy Zemlyanik |
| 1977 | Everett McGill | Lu Ann Hampton Laverly Oberlander | Dale Laverty |
| 1977 | Ralph Roberts | The Oldest Living Graduate | Mike Tremaine |
| 1978 |
| 1978 | Morgan Freeman | The Mighty Gents | Zeke |
| 1978 | Jeffrey DeMunn | A Prayer for My Daughter | Jack Delasante |
| 1978 | Visili Bogazianos | P.S. Your Cat Is Dead | Vrro |
| 1978 | Jerome Dempsey | Dracula | Abraham Van Helsing |
| 1978 | George Dzundza | A Prayer for My Daughter | Kelly |
| 1978 | Michael Higgins | Molly | Teddy |
| 1978 | Lester Rawlins | Da | Drumm |
| 1979 |
| 1979 | George Rose | The Kingfisher | Hawkins |
| 1979 | Michael Gough | Bedroom Farce | Ernest |
| 1979 | I.M. Hobson | The Elephant Man | Various Characters |
| 1979 | Nicholas Woodeson | Man and Superman | Henry Straker |

### 1980s

| Year | Actor | Play | Character |
| 1980 |
| 1980 | David Rounds | Morning's at Seven | Homer Bolton |
| 1980 | David Dukes | Bent | Horst |
| 1980 | Michael Gross | Bent | Greta |
| 1980 | Doug McClure | The Roast | Charles Browning |
| 1980 | Hansford Rowe | Nuts | Arthur Kirk |
| 1980 | Fritz Weaver | The Price | Walter Franz |
| 1981 |
| 1981 | Brian Backer | The Floating Light Bulb | Paul Pollack |
| 1981 | Ralph Clanton | The Winslow Boy | Arthur Winslow |
| 1981 | Roderick Cook | The Man Who Came to Dinner | Beverly Carlton |
| 1981 | Jeff Daniels | Fifth of July | Jed Jenkins |
| 1981 | Nicholas Kepros | Amadeus | Joseph II, Holy Roman Emperor |
| 1981 | John Shea | American Days | Don Sherman |
| 1982 |
| 1982 | Adolph Caesar | A Soldier's Play | Sergeant Waters |
| 1982 | Željko Ivanek | Cloud Nine | Betty / Gerry |
| 1982 | Matthew Broderick | Torch Song Trilogy | David |
| 1982 | Bill Moor | Potsdam Quartet | John Healey |
| 1982 | Mandy Patinkin | Henry IV | Hotspur |
| 1982 | Larry Riley | A Soldier's Play | Private C.J. Memphis |
| 1983 |
| 1983 | Alan Feinstein | A View from the Bridge | Marco |
| 1983 | Stephen Joyce | The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial | Captain Blakely |
| 1983 | Nathan Lane | Present Laughter | Roland Maule |
| 1983 | Frank Maraden | The Workroom | First Presser |
| 1983 | Stephen Moore | All's Well that Ends Well | Captain Parolles |
| 1983 | Michael Moriarty | The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial | Lt. Com. Philip Francis Queeg |
| 1983 | Stephen D. Newman | The Misanthrope | Philinte |
| 1984 |
| 1984 | John Malkovich | Death of a Salesman | Biff Loman |
| 1984 | David Huddleston | Death of a Salesman | Charley |
| 1984 | Stephen Keep | A Private View | Vanek |
| 1984 | Calvin Levels | Open Admissions | Calvin Jefferson |
| 1984 | Chip Zien | Isn't It Romantic | Marty Sterling |
| 1985 |
| 1985 | Charles S. Dutton | Ma Rainey's Black Bottom | Levee |
| 1985 | Barry Miller | Biloxi Blues | Arnold Epstein |
| 1985 | Ken Kliban | As Is | Barney / Brother |
| 1985 | Edward Petherbridge | Strange Interlude | Charles Marsden |
| 1985 | David Proval | Requiem for a Heavyweight | Army Hakes |
| 1985 | Bill Sadler | Biloxi Blues | Sgt. Merwin J. Toomey |
| 1986 |
| 1986 | Joseph Maher | Loot | Truscott |
| 1986 | James Gammon | A Lie of the Mind | Baylor |
| 1986 | Donald Moffat | The Iceman Cometh | Larry Slade |
| 1986 | Anthony Rapp | Precious Sons | Freddy |
| 1987 |
| 1987 | John Randolph | Broadway Bound | Ben |
| 1987 | Michael Countryman | The Common Pursuit | Martin Musgrove |
| 1987 | Frankie R. Faison | Fences | Gabriel |
| 1987 | Peter Friedman | The Common Pursuit | Humphry Taylor |
| 1987 | Ray Gill | Driving Miss Daisy | Boolie Werthan |
| 1987 | Tony Jay | The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby | Mr. Vincent Crummles / Walter Bray |
| 1988 |
| 1988 | BD Wong | M. Butterfly | Song Liling |
| 1988 | Athol Fugard | The Road to Mecca | Rev. Marius Byleveld |
| 1988 | Michael Gough | Breaking the Code | Dillwyn Knox |
| 1988 | Joe Grifasi | The Boys Next Door | Arnold Wiggins |
| 1988 | Ed Hall | Joe Turner's Come and Gone | Bynum Walker |
| 1988 | Lou Liberatore | Burn This | Larry |
| 1989 |
| 1989 | Peter Frechette | Eastern Standard | Drew |
| 1989 | Fyvush Finkel | Café Crown | Sam |
| 1989 | Bill Irwin | Waiting for Godot | Lucky |
| 1989 | Edmund Lewis | Without Apologies | Willie Jukes |
| 1989 | Matt McGrath | Dalton's Back | Dalty Possil |
| 1989 | Eric Stoltz | Our Town | George Gibbs |
| 1989 | Gordon Joseph Weiss | Ghetto | The Dummy |

### 1990s

| Year | Actor | Play | Character |
| 1990 |
| 1990 | Charles Durning | Cat on a Hot Tin Roof | Big Daddy |
| 1990 | Rocky Carroll | The Piano Lesson | Lymon |
| 1990 | Simon Jones | Privates on Parade | Giles Flack |
| 1990 | Francis Guinan | The Grapes of Wrath | Various Characters |
| 1990 | Dustin Hoffman | The Merchant of Venice | Shylock |
| 1991 |
| 1991 | Kevin Spacey | Lost in Yonkers | "Uncle" Louie |
| 1991 | Dylan Baker | La Bête | Prince Conty |
| 1991 | Marcus Chong | Stand-Up Tragedy | Lee Cortez |
| 1991 | Leland Gantt | Let Me Live | Dupree |
| 1991 | Josef Sommer | Hamlet | Polonius |
| 1992 |
| 1992 | Laurence Fishburne | Two Trains Running | Sterling |
| 1992 | Giancarlo Esposito | Distant Fires | Performer |
| 1992 | Željko Ivanek | Two Shakespearean Actors | John Ryder |
| 1992 | Mark Rosenthal | Marvin's Room | Hank |
| 1993 |
| 1993 | Joe Mantello | Angels in America: Millennium Approaches | Louis Ironson |
| 1993 | Stephen Spinella | Angels in America: Millennium Approaches | Prior Walter |
| 1993 | David Marshall Grant | Angels in America: Millennium Approaches | Joe Pitt / Prior 1 / The Eskimo |
| 1993 | Robert Klein | The Sisters Rosensweig | Mervyn Kant |
| 1993 | Eli Wallach | The Price | Gregory Solomon |
| 1994 |
| 1994 | Jeffrey Wright | Angels in America: Perestroika | Mr. Lies / Belize |
| 1994 | Marcus D'Amico | An Inspector Calls | Eric Birling |
| 1994 | Gregory Itzin | The Kentucky Cycle | Various Characters |
| 1994 | Ron Leibman | Angels in America: Perestroika | Roy Cohn |
| 1994 | Christopher McCann | The Lights | Erenhart |
| 1995 |
| 1995 | Nathan Lane | Love! Valour! Compassion! | Buzz Hauser |
| 1995 | Simon Coates | As You Like It | Celia |
| 1995 | John Glover | Love! Valour! Compassion! | John and James Jeckyll |
| 1995 | Kevin Kilner | The Glass Menagerie | Jim O'Connor |
| 1995 | Anthony LaPaglia | The Rose Tattoo | Alvaro Mangiacavallo |
| 1995 | Alessandro Nivola | A Month in the Country | Beliaev |
| 1996 |
| 1996 | Martin Shaw | An Ideal Husband | Lord Arthur Goring |
| 1996 | Heavy D | Riff Raff | Tony |
| 1996 | James Gammon | Buried Child | Dodge |
| 1996 | Alfred Molina | Molly Sweeney | Lord Goring |
| 1996 | Reg Rogers | Holiday | Ned Seton |
| 1996 | Ruben Santiago-Hudson | Seven Guitars | Canewell |
| 1997 |
| 1997 | Brian Murray | The Little Foxes | Benjamin |
| 1997 | Kirk Acevedo | Tooth of Crime (Second Dance) | Crow |
| 1997 | Billy Crudup | Three Sisters | Solyony |
| 1997 | David Greenspan | The Boys in the Band | Harold |
| 1997 | Edward Herrmann | Psychopathia Sexualis | Dr. Block |
| 1997 | Christopher Evan Welch | Scapin | Silvestre |
| 1998 |
| 1998 | Alfred Molina | 'Art' | Yvan |
| 1998 | Adam Alexi-Malle | Goose-Pimples | Muhammad |
| 1998 | Ruaidhri Conroy | The Cripple of Inishmaan | Billy Claven |
| 1998 | Ron Leibman | A Dybbuk, or Between Two Worlds | Rabbi Azriel |
| 1998 | Max Wright | Ivanov | Pavel Lebedev |
| 1998 | Harris Yulin | The Diary of Anne Frank | Mr. Van Daan |
| 1999 |
| 1999 | Kevin Anderson | Death of a Salesman | Biff |
| 1999 | Peter Bartlett | The Most Fabulous Story Ever Told | Various Characters |
| 1999 | James Black | Not About Nightingales | Butch O'Fallon |
| 1999 | Paul Giamatti | The Iceman Cometh | James Cameron |
| 1999 | Ciarán Hinds | Closer | Larry |
| 1999 | Howard Witt | Death of a Salesman | Charley |

### 2000s

| Year | Actor | Play | Character |
| 2000 |
| 2000 | Roy Dotrice | A Moon for the Misbegotten | Phil Hogan |
| 2000 | Matthew Arkin | Dinner with Friends | Gabe |
| 2000 | Joel Grey | Give Me Your Answer, Do! | Jack Donovan |
| 2000 | Philip Seymour Hoffman | The Author's Voice | Gene |
| 2000 | Brian Murray | Uncle Vanya | Alexander Vladimirovich Serebryakov |
| 2000 | Harris Yulin | The Price | Walter Franz |
| 2001 |
| 2001 | Charles Brown | King Hedley II | Elmore |
| 2001 | Oliver Ford Davies | Richard II | Duke of York |
| 2001 | Aaron Himelstein | The Dead Eye Boy | Soren |
| 2001 | Justin Kirk | Ten Unknowns | Judd Burgess |
| 2001 | Maximilian Schell | Judgment at Nuremberg | Dr. Ernst Janning |
| 2001 | Lewis J. Stadlen | The Man Who Came to Dinner | Banjo |
| 2002 |
| 2002 | Frank Langella | Fortune's Fool | Flegont Alexandrovitch Tropatchov |
| 2002 | Will LeBow | Nocturne | Father |
| 2002 | Brian Murray | The Crucible | Deputy Governor Thomas Danforth |
| 2002 | Keith Nobbs | Four | June |
| 2002 | Sam Robards | The Man Who Had All the Luck | Gustav Eberson |
| 2002 | David Warner | Major Barbara | Andrew Undershaft |
| 2003 |
| 2003 | Denis O'Hare | Take Me Out | Mason Marzak |
| 2003 | Simon Russell Beale | Twelfth Night | Malvolio |
| 2003 | Walter Bobbie | Polish Joke | Various Characters |
| 2003 | Philip Seymour Hoffman | Long Day's Journey into Night | James "Jamie", Jr. |
| 2003 | T. R. Knight | Scattergood | Brendan Hillard |
| 2003 | Frederick Weller | Take Me Out | Shane Mungitt |
| 2004 |
| 2004 | Ned Beatty | Cat on a Hot Tin Roof | Big Daddy |
| 2004 | Michael Berry | Moby Dick | Starbuck |
| 2004 | André De Shields | Prymate | Graham |
| 2004 | Aidan Gillen | The Caretaker | Mick |
| 2004 | John Lithgow | Mrs. Farnsworth | Mr. Farnsworth |
| 2004 | Corey Stoll | Intimate Apparel | Mr. Marks |
| 2005 |
| 2005 | Michael Stuhlbarg | The Pillowman | Michal |
| 2005 | Philip Bosco | Twelve Angry Men | Juror 3 |
| 2005 | Larry Bryggman | Romance | The Judge |
| 2005 | Jeff Goldblum | The Pillowman | Tupolski |
| 2005 | Josh Hamilton | Hurlyburly | Mickey |
| 2005 | Paul Sparks | Orange Flower Water | Brad |
| 2006 |
| 2006 | Samuel Barnett | The History Boys | David Posner |
| 2006 | Devon Abner | The Trip to Bountiful | Ludie Watts |
| 2006 | Dominic Cooper | The History Boys | Dakin |
| 2006 | Jason Butler Harner | The Paris Letter | Young Anton / Burt Sarris |
| 2006 | Stephen Campbell Moore | The History Boys | Irwin |
| 2006 | David Pittu | Celebration and The Room | Mr. Sands / Waiter |
| 2007 |
| 2007 | Boyd Gaines | Journey's End | Lieut. Osborne |
| 2007 | Anthony Chisholm | Radio Golf | Elder Joseph Barlow |
| 2007 | Billy Crudup | The Coast of Utopia | Vissarion Belinsky |
| 2007 | John Ortiz | Jack Goes Boating | Clyde |
| 2007 | Andrew Polk | The Accomplices | Samuel Merlin / John Pehle / Emanuel Celler |
| 2007 | Fred Weller | Some Men | Various Characters |
| 2008 |
| 2008 | Conleth Hill | The Seafarer | Ivan Curry |
| 2008 | John Cullum | The Conscientious Objector | Lyndon B. Johnson |
| 2008 | Francis Jue | Yellow Face | Various Characters |
| 2008 | Arian Moayed | Masked | Na'im |
| 2008 | Jeff Perry | August: Osage County | Bill Fordham |
| 2008 | Michael T. Weiss | Scarcity | Herb |
| 2009 |
| 2009 | Pablo Schreiber | reasons to be pretty | Kent |
| 2009 | Brian d'Arcy James | Port Authority | Dermot |
| 2009 | Jeremy Davidson | Back Back Back | Kent |
| 2009 | Peter Friedman | Body Awareness | Frank |
| 2009 | Ethan Hawke | The Winter's Tale | Autolycus |
| 2009 | Jeremy Shamos | Animals Out of Paper | Andy |

### 2010s

| Year | Actor | Play | Character |
| 2010 |
| 2010 | Santino Fontana | Brighton Beach Memoirs | Stanley Jerome |
| 2010 | Chris Chalk | Fences | Corey |
| 2010 | Sean Dugan | Next Fall | Brandon |
| 2010 | Adam James | The Pride | The Man / Peter / The Doctor |
| 2010 | Hamish Linklater | Twelfth Night | Sir Andrew Aguecheek |
| 2010 | Nick Westrate | The Boys in the Band | Donald |
| 2011 |
| 2011 | Brian Bedford | The Importance of Being Earnest | Lady Bracknell |
| 2011 | Christian Borle | Peter and the Starcatcher | Black Stache |
| 2011 | Boyd Gaines | The Grand Manner | Guthrie McClintic |
| 2011 | Logan Marshall-Green | The Hallway Trilogy | Lloyd Boyd |
| 2011 | Zachary Quinto | Angels in America: Millennium Approaches | Louis Ironson |
| 2011 | Tom Riley | Arcadia | Septimus Hodge |
| 2011 | Yul Vázquez | The Motherf**ker with the Hat | Cousin Julio |
| 2012 |
| 2012 | Tom Edden | One Man, Two Guvnors | Alfie |
| 2012 | Bill Camp | Death of a Salesman | Charley |
| 2012 | Jim Dale | The Road to Mecca | Marius Byleveld |
| 2012 | Bill Irwin | King Lear | Lear's Fool |
| 2012 | Jefferson Mays | Blood and Gifts | Simon Craig |
| 2012 | Will Rogers | Unnatural Acts | Joseph Lumbard |
| 2012 | Morgan Spector | Russian Transport | Boris |
| 2013 |
| 2013 | Richard Kind | The Big Knife | Marcus Hoff |
| 2013 | Chuck Cooper | The Piano Lesson | Wining Boy |
| 2013 | Peter Friedman | The Great God Pan | Doug |
| 2013 | Aaron Clifton Moten | The Flick | Avery |
| 2013 | Brían F. O'Byrne | If There Is I Haven't Found It Yet | George |
| 2013 | Tony Shalhoub | Golden Boy | Mr. Bonaparte |
| 2014 |
| 2014 | Reed Birney | Casa Valentina | Charlotte |
| 2014 | Chuck Cooper | Choir Boy | Headmaster Marrow |
| 2014 | Peter Maloney | Outside Mullingar | Tony Reilly |
| 2014 | Bobby Moreno | Year of the Rooster | Odysseus Rex |
| 2014 | Bill Pullman | The Jacksonian | Fred |
| 2014 | Brian J. Smith | The Glass Menagerie | Jim O'Connor |
| 2015 |
| 2015 | K. Todd Freeman | Airline Highway | Sissy Na Na |
| 2015 | F. Murray Abraham | It's Only a Play | Ira Drew |
| 2015 | Reed Birney | You Got Older | Father |
| 2015 | Jonathan Hadary | Rocket to the Moon | Mr. Prince |
| 2015 | Jason Butler Harner | The Village Bike | John |
| 2015 | Jonathan Hogan | Pocatello | Cole |
| 2015 | José Joaquín Pérez | My Mañana Comes | Jorge |
| 2016 |
| 2016 | Michael Shannon | Long Day's Journey into Night | James Tyrone Jr. |
| 2016 | Bill Camp | The Crucible | Reverend John Hale |
| 2016 | David Furr | Noises Off | Gary Lejeune |
| 2016 | Matt McGrath | The Legend of Georgia McBride | Tracy Mills |
| 2016 | Richard Thomas | Incident At Vichy | Von Berg |
| 2017 |
| 2017 | Danny DeVito | The Price | Gregory Solomon |
| 2017 | Michael Aronov | Oslo | Uri Savir |
| 2017 | Nathan Lane | The Front Page | Walter Burns |
| 2017 | Jeremy Shamos | If I Forget | Michael Fischer |
| 2017 | Justice Smith | Yen | Bobbie |
| 2018 |
| 2018 | Nathan Lane | Angels in America | Roy Cohn |
| 2018 | Anthony Boyle | Harry Potter and the Cursed Child | Scorpius Malfoy |
| 2018 | Ben Edelman | Admissions | Charlie Luther Mason |
| 2018 | Brian Tyree Henry | Lobby Hero | William |
| 2018 | David Morse | The Iceman Cometh | Larry Slade |
| 2018 | Gregg Mozgala | Cost of Living | John |
| 2019 |
| 2019 | Tom Glynn-Carney | The Ferryman | Shane Corcoran |
| 2019 | Charles Browning | Fairview | Dayton |
| 2019 | Arnie Burton | Lewiston/Clarkston | Connor |
| 2019 | Hampton Fluker | Arthur Miller's All My Sons | George Deever |
| 2019 | Brandon Uranowitz | Burn This | Larry |

### 2020s

| Year | Actor | Play | Character |
| 2020 |
| 2020 | Paul Hilton | The Inheritance | Morgan / Walter Poole |
| 2020 | Victor Almanzar | Halfway Bitches Go Straight to Heaven | Joey Fresco |
| 2020 | Esteban Andres Cruz | Halfway Bitches Go Straight to Heaven | Venus Ramirez |
| 2020 | David Alan Grier | A Soldier's Play | Sergeant Vernon C. Waters |
| 2020 | Chris Perfetti | Moscow Moscow Moscow Moscow Moscow Moscow | Masha |
| 2021 | No awards: New York theatres shuttered, March 2020 to September 2021, due to the COVID-19 pandemic in New York City | No awards: New York theatres shuttered, March 2020 to September 2021, due to the COVID-19 pandemic in New York City | No awards: New York theatres shuttered, March 2020 to September 2021, due to the COVID-19 pandemic in New York City |
| 2022 |
| 2022 | Ron Cephas Jones | Clyde's | Montrellous |
| 2022 | Joshua Boone | Skeleton Crew | Dez |
| 2022 | Chuck Cooper | Trouble in Mind | Sheldon Forrester |
| 2022 | Daniel K. Isaac | The Chinese Lady | Atung |
| 2022 | Billy Eugene Jones | On Sugarland | Saul |

## Multiple Wins
### 2 wins

* Nathan Lane
* Frank Langella