# Helpmann Award for Best Male Actor in a Play

The Helpmann Award for Best Male Actor in a Play is an award presented by Live Performance Australia (LPA) (the trade name for the Australian Entertainment Industry Association (AEIA)), an employers' organisation which serves as the peak body in the live entertainment and performing arts industries in Australia. The accolade is handed out at the annual Helpmann Awards, which celebrates achievements in musical theatre, contemporary music, comedy, opera, classical music, theatre, dance and physical theatre. This is a list of winners and nominations for the Helpmann Award for Best Male Actor in a Play.

## Winners and nominees

* Source:
| Year | Actor | Production | Character(s) |
| 2001 (1st) |
| 2001 (1st) | John Gaden | The Unexpected Man | The Man |
| 2001 (1st) | Bille Brown | Troilus and Cressida | Paris |
| 2001 (1st) | Kim Gyngell | 'Art' | Yvan |
| 2001 (1st) | Geoffrey Rush | The Small Poppies | Clint |
| 2002 (2nd) |
| 2002 (2nd) | John Bell | Richard III | Richard III |
| 2002 (2nd) | Peter Carroll | The Christian Brothers | Unnamed teacher |
| 2002 (2nd) | Willem Dafoe | The Hairy Ape | Yank |
| 2002 (2nd) | John Stanton | The Tempest | Prospero |
| 2003 (3rd) |
| 2003 (3rd) | Colin Friels | Copenhagen | Werner Heisenberg |
| 2003 (3rd) | Marcus Graham | The Blue Room | Various characters |
| 2003 (3rd) | Benjamin Winspear | Great Expectations | Pip |
| 2003 (3rd) | Max Cullen | Waiting for Godot | Estragon (Gogo) |
| 2004 (4th) |
| 2004 (4th) | Darren Gilshenan | The Servant of Two Masters | Truffaldino |
| 2004 (4th) | David Gulpilil | Gulpilil | Himself |
| 2004 (4th) | Frank Gallacher | Frozen | Ralph |
| 2004 (4th) | Paul Blackwell | Night Letters | Robert |
| 2005 (5th) |
| 2005 (5th) | Robert Menzies | Journal of the Plague Year | Daniel Defoe |
| 2005 (5th) | Richard Piper | The Daylight Atheist | Dan Morphett |
| 2005 (5th) | Aaron Pedersen | Eating Ice Cream With Eyes Closed | Macca |
| 2005 (5th) | William Zappa | Death of a Salesman | Willy Loman |
| 2006 (6th) |
| 2006 (6th) | Greg Stone | Stuff Happens | George W. Bush |
| 2006 (6th) | Robert Menzies | Julius Caesar | Marcus Brutus |
| 2006 (6th) | Stephen Dillane | Macbeth | Various characters |
| 2006 (6th) | Marcus Graham | Oedipus the King | Oedipus |
| 2007 (7th) |
| 2007 (7th) | Jefferson Mays | I Am My Own Wife | Charlotte von Mahlsdorf |
| 2007 (7th) | Cameron Goodall | Hamlet | Hamlet |
| 2007 (7th) | John Gaden | The Lost Echo | Tiresias |
| 2007 (7th) | Peter Carroll | The Season At Sarsaparilla | Girlie Pogson |
| 2008 (8th) |
| 2008 (8th) | Richard Roxburgh | Toy Symphony | Roland Henning |
| 2008 (8th) | Geoffrey Rush | Exit the King | King Berenger |
| 2008 (8th) | Marton Csokas | Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? | George |
| 2008 (8th) | Martin Niedermair | The Tell-Tale Heart | Unnamed |
| 2009 (9th) |
| 2009 (9th) | Ben Winspear | Baghdad Wedding | Salim |
| 2009 (9th) | Colin Moody | Antigone | Creon |
| 2009 (9th) | Greg Stone | Blackbird | Ray |
| 2009 (9th) | Robert Menzies | War of the Roses | Henry IV |
| 2010 (10th) |
| 2010 (10th) | Ewen Leslie | Richard III | King Richard III |
| 2010 (10th) | Paul Blackwell | The Hypochondriac | Argan |
| 2010 (10th) | Toby Schmitz | Ruben Guthrie | Ruben Guthrie |
| 2010 (10th) | Robert Menzies | The End | Dying Man |
| 2011 (11th) |
| 2011 (11th) | Geoffrey Rush | The Diary of a Madman | Poprishchin |
| 2011 (11th) | Richard Roxburgh | Uncle Vanya | Vanya |
| 2011 (11th) | Toby Schmitz | Much Ado About Nothing | Benedick |
| 2011 (11th) | Lucas Stibbard | Boy Girl Wall | Thomas, various |
| 2012 (12th) |
| 2012 (12th) | Paul Capsis | Angela's Kitchen | Various |
| 2012 (12th) | Bille Brown | The Histrionic | Bruscon |
| 2012 (12th) | Jack Charles | Jack Charles v The Crown | Himself |
| 2012 (12th) | Colin Friels | Red | Mark Rothko |
| 2013 (13th) |
| 2013 (13th) | Colin Friels | Death of a Salesman | Bruscon |
| 2013 (13th) | John Bell | Henry 4 | Falstaff |
| 2013 (13th) | Colin Moody | Forget Me Not | Gerry |
| 2013 (13th) | Nathaniel Dean | The Secret River | William Thornhill |
| 2014 (14th) |
| 2014 (14th) | Richard Roxburgh | Waiting for Godot | Estragon |
| 2014 (14th) | Paul Blackwell | Vere (Faith) | Vere |
| 2014 (14th) | Luke Carroll | The Cake Man | Sweet William |
| 2014 (14th) | Denis O'Hare | An Iliad | The Poet |
| 2015 (15th) |
| 2015 (15th) | Hugo Weaving | Endgame | Hamm |
| 2015 (15th) | Peter Carroll | Oedipus Rex | Oedipus |
| 2015 (15th) | Hunter Page-Lochard | Brothers Wreck | Ruben |
| 2015 (15th) | Steve Rodgers | Eight Gigabytes of Hardcore Pornography | |
| 2016 (16th) |
| 2016 (16th) | Mark Leonard Winter | Birdland | Paul |
| 2016 (16th) | Pacharo Mzembe | Prize Fighter | Isa |
| 2016 (16th) | Richard Roxburgh | The Present | Mikhail Platonov |
| 2016 (16th) | Dan Spielman | The Blind Giant is Dancing | Allen Fitzgerald |
| 2017 (17th) |
| 2017 (17th) | Mark Coles Smith | The Drover's Wife | Yadaka |
| 2017 (17th) | Jason Chong | Chimerica | Zhang Lin |
| 2017 (17th) | Colin Friels | Faith Healer | Francis Hardy |
| 2017 (17th) | Jason Klarwein | Once in Royal David's City | Will Drummond |
| 2018 (18th) |
| 2018 (18th) | Hugo Weaving | The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui | Arturo Ui |
| 2018 (18th) | Toby Schmitz | Thyestes | Atreus |
| 2018 (18th) | John Bell AO | The Father | André |
| 2018 (18th) | Daniel Monks | The Real and Imagined History of the Elephant Man | Joseph Merrick |
| 2019 (19th) |
| 2019 (19th) | Prakash Belawadi | Counting and Cracking | Apah |
| 2019 (19th) | Wayne Blair | The Long Forgotten Dream | Jeremiah Tucker |
| 2019 (19th) | Kelton Pell | Summer of the Seventeenth Doll | Roo |
| 2019 (19th) | Amer Hlehel | TAHA | Taha Muhammad Ali |