2008

Tracy Letts. August: Osage County

2007

David Lindsay-Abaire. Rabbit Hole

2006

No Award Given

2005

John Patrick Shanley. Doubt, a Parable

2004

Doug Wright. I Am My Own Wife

Explores the astonishing true story of Charlotte von Mahlsdorf. A transvestite and celebrated antiques dealer who successfully navigated the two most oppressive regimes of the past century-the Nazis and the Communists--while openly gay and defiantly in drag, von Mahlsdorf was both hailed as a cultural hero and accused of colluding with the Stasi.

2003

Nilo Cruz. Anna in the Tropics

2002

Suzan-Lori Parks. Topdog/Underdog

A darkly comic fable of brotherly love and family identity is Suzan-Lori Parks latest riff on the way we are defined by history. The play tells the story of Lincoln and Booth, two brothers whose names were given to them as a joke, forettling a lifetime of sibling rivalry and resentment. Haunted by the past, the brothers are forced to confront the shattering reality of their future.

2001

David Auburn. Proof

2000

Donald Margulies. Dinner with Friends

1999

Margaret Edson. Wit

At the start of Wit, Vivian Bearing, Ph.D., a renowned professor of English who has spent years studying and teaching the brilliantly difficult metaphysical sonnets of John Donne, has been diagnosed with terminal ovarian cancer. Her approach to her illness is not unlike her approach to the study of Donne: aggressively probing, intensely rational, deeply witty. But during the course of her illness-and her stint as a prize patient in an experimental chemotherapy program at a major teaching hospital-Vivian comes to reassess her life and her work with a profundity and humor that are transformative both for her and for the audience.

1998

Paula Vogel. How I Learned to Drive

The 1950s pop music accompanying Li'l Bit's excursion down memory lane cannot drown out the ghosts of her past. Sweet recollections of driving with her beloved uncle intermingle with lessons about the darker sides of life. Balmy evenings are fraught with danger; seductions happen anywhere. Li'l Bit navigates a narrow path between the demands of family and her own sense of right and wrong.

1997

No Award given

1996

Jonathan Larson. Rent

Rent captures the heart and spirit of a generation, reflecting it onstage through the emotion of its stirring words and music, and the energy of its young cast.

1995

Horton Foote. Young Man from Atlanta

In 1950s Houston, an affluent couple is transformed by tragedy when their son dies under mysterious circumstances and the husband loses his job of 40 years

1994

Edward Albee. Three Tall Women

Recovering from the brink of death after venting her frustrations about an unjust world, a ninety-two-year-old woman recounts three stages of her painful life.

1993

Tony Kushner. Angels in America: Millenium Approaches

Prior is a man living with AIDS whose lover Louis has left him and become involved with Joe, an ex-Mormon and political conservative whose wife, Harper, is slowly having a nervous breakdown. These stories are contrasted with that of Roy Cohn and his attempts to remain in the closet while trying to find some sort of personal salvation in his beliefs.

1992

Robert Schenkkan. The Kentucky Cycle

An epic of 9 generations of two families in Kentucky.

1991

Neil Simon. Lost in Yonkers

A play about two young boys who are forced to live for a year with their domineering, ill-tempered grandmother while their father takes a job in another state.

1990

August Wilson. The Piano Lesson

Set in 1936, The Piano Lesson is a powerful new play from the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Fences and Ma Rainey's Black Bottom. A sister and brother fight over a piano that has been in the family for three generations, creating a remarkable drama that embodies the painful past and expectant future of black Americans.

1989

Wendy Wasserstein. The Heidi Chronicles

1988

Alfred Uhry. Driving Miss Daisy

The story of Daisy, a Jewish woman in Atlanta, and her African-American driver Hoke and the friendship that develops between them over the years.

1987

August Wilson. Fences

The story of Troy, astrong black man who tries to keep up with the times, but can't escape his father's grip.

1986

No Award given

1985

Stephen Sondheim (music and lyrics) and James Lapine (book). Sunday in the Park with George

A musical about the pointillist painter George Seurat.

1984

David Mamet. Glengarry Glen Ross

Business is not going well at a real estate office, then a daring robbery changes everything.

1983

Marsha Norman. ’Night Mother

1982

Charles Fuller. A Soldier’s Play

1981

Beth Henley. Crimes of the Heart

Deeply touching play about three eccentric sisters from a small Southern town rocked by scandal when Babe, the youngest, shoots her husband. Humor and pathos abound as the sisters unite with an intense young lawyer to save Babe from a murder charge.

1980

Lanford Wilson. Talley’s Folly

1979

Sam Shepard. Buried Child

1978

Donald L. Coburn. The Gin Game

1977

Michael Cristofer. The Shadow Box

1976

Michael Bennett (conceived, choreographed and directed), James Kirkwood and Nicholas Dante (book), Marvin Hamlisch (music), and Edward Kleban (lyrics). A Chorus Line

1975

Edward Albee. Seascape

1974

No Award given

1973

Jason Miller. That Championship Season

1972

No Award given

1971

Paul Zindel. The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds

Focuses on the ups and downs of the relationship between an embittered, eccentric woman and her two teenage daughters.

1970

Charles Gordone. No place To Be Somebody

1969

Howard Sackler. The Great White Hope

1968

No Award given

1967

Edward Albee. A Delicate Balance

A dark comedy about unfulfilled lives, broken promises, and family jealousies.

1966

No Award given

1965

Frank D. Gilroy. The Subject Was Roses

1964

No Award given

1963

No Award given

1962

Frank Loesser and Abe Burrows. How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying

1961

Tad Mosel. All the Way Home

1960

Jerome Weidman and George Abbott (book), Jerry Bock (music), and Sheldon Harnick (lyrics). Fiorello!

1959

Archibald MacLeish. J.B.

A play in verse that is a modern interpretation of the ancient Book of Job.

1958

Ketti Frings. Look Homeward Angel

1957

Eugene O’Neill. Long Day’s Journey Into Night

This play is O'Neill's autobiographical masterpiece which he would not allow to be published until after his death. Set on a single day in August 1912, the play traces the disintegration of the Tyrone family.

1956

Albert Hackett and Frances Goodrich. Diary of Anne Frank

Based upon the book, the Diary of Anne Frank, it tells the story of the Frank family who hide in an Amsterdam attic to escape the Nazis.

1955

Tennessee Williams. Cat On a Hot Tin Roof

A story of deception which is destroying a patriarchal Southern family as its' members gather for the imminent demise of their "Big Daddy."

1954

John Patrick. The Teahouse of the August Moon

Okinawa 1946- occupied by American troops whose assignment is to bring democracy to the inhabitants. The captain in charge is a well-meaning but inept loser, and faces a wily oriental interpreter and a determined geisha girl, along with villagers who know how to take advantage of foreign occupation.

1953

William Inge. Picnic

1952

Joseph Kramm. The Shrike

1951

No Award given

1950

Richard Rodgers, Oscar Hammerstein II and Joshua Logan. South Pacific

1949

Arthur Miller. Death of a Salesman

The tragedy of a typical American--a salesman who at the age of sixty-three is faced with what he cannot face; defeat and disillusionment.

1948

Tennessee Williams. A Streetcar Named Desire

The story of Blanche DuBois and her last grasp at happiness, and of Stanley Kowalski, the one who destroyed her chance.

1947

No Award given

1946

Russell Crouse and Howard Lindsay. State of the Union

1945

Mary Chase. Harvey

Elwood P. Dowd is a good-natured fellow whose constant companion is Harvey , a six-feet tall rabbit that only he can see. To his sister, Veta Louise, Elwood's obsession with Harvey has been a thorn in the side of her plans to marry off her daughter. But when Veta Louise decides to put Elwood in a mental hospital, a hilarious mix-up occurs.

1944

No Award given

1943

Thornton Wilder. The Skin of Our Teeth

1942

No Award given

1941

Robert E. Sherwood. There Shall Be No Night

1940

William Saroyan. The Time of Your Life

Joe, a lovesome, fast-talking regular at the local saloon believes in encouraging everybody in their intoxicating dreams.

1939

Robert E. Sherwood. Abe Lincoln in Illinois

1938

Thornton Wilder. Our Town

The drama of life in the small village of Grover's Corners.

1937

Moss Hart and George S. Kaufman. You Can’t Take It With You

Comedy about the Sycamores, an eccentric family of free spirits, and the problems that arise when Alice, the one stable member, falls for her boss's son.

1936

Robert E. Sherwood. Idiot’s Delight

1935

Zoe Akins. The Old Maid

1934

Sidney Kingsley. Men in White

1933

Maxwell Anderson. Both Your Houses

1932

George S. Kaufman, Morrie Ryskind and Ira Gershwin. Of Thee I Sing

1931

Susan Glaspell. Alison’s House

1930

Marc Connelly. The Green Pastures

1929

Elmer L. Rice. Street Scene

1928

Eugene O’Neill. Strange Interlude

Drama about Nina Leeds, a possessive woman, and the six men whose lives she defines.

1927

Paul E. Green. In Abraham’s Bosom

1926

George Kelly. Craig’s Wife

1925

Sidney Howard. They Knew What They Wanted

1924

Hatcher Hughes. Hell-Bent Fer Heaven

1923

Owen Davis. Icebound

1922

Eugene O’Neill. Anna Christie

The passion of a coal barge captain's daughter and a handsome sailor takes a tumultuous turn when secrets from her past are revealed.

1921

Zona Gale. Miss Lulu Bett

1920

Eugene O’Neill. Beyond the Horizon

1919

No Award given

1918

Jesse Lynch Williams. Why Marry

1917

No Award given