Tom Stoppard breaks own Tony record with ‘Leopoldstadt’ win

Sam Eckmann
·3 min read
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Tom Stoppard won the Best Play trophy for “Leopoldstadt” at the 2023 Tony Awards. This is his fifth win in the category, breaking his own Tony record. The theater legend maintains an impressive lead as the winningest playwright in the Best Play category.

“Leopoldstadt” is a sprawling epic which traces the lineage of a Jewish family in Vienna from 1899 to 1955. The play considers important questions of assimilation and identity. The show picked up four wins in total, with additional victories for Brandon Uranowitz in Featured Actor in a Play, Patrick Marber in Director of a Play, and Brigitte Reiffenstuel in Costume Design of a Play.

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Stoppard has now won the Best Play category five times in his career, more than any other playwright in history. He previously prevailed for “Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead” (1968), “Travesties” (1976), “The Real Thing” (1984), and the three-part epic “The Coast of Utopia” (2007). The Tony Awards do not have a separate category to honor writing in new plays, so the Best Play category honors playwrights alongside the show’s producers.

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Before this year, Stoppard had already set a record in the category with his four victories. No other playwright has won more than two Best Play trophies. Seven writers have a pair of victories in this race. Edward Albee won for “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” and “The Goat, or Who is Sylvia?” Tony Kushner won consecutive awards for “Angels in America: Millennium Approaches” and “Angels in America: Perestroika.” Terrence McNally won for “Love! Valour! Compassion!” and “Master Class.” Arthur Miller won for “Death of a Salesman” and “The Crucible.” Yasmina Reza won for “Art” and “God of Carnage.” Peter Shaffer won for “Equus” and “Amadeus.” Neil Simon won for “Biloxi Blues” and “Lost in Yonkers.”

Simon holds the record for most nominated playwright in the Best Play category with 10 nominations. Just behind him is August Wilson with nine. Tom Stoppard isn’t the record holder here, but still comes in in a respectable third place. “Leopoldstadt” was his eighth Best Play nomination. Other top nomination-getters in this category include Edward Albee with six, and Arthur Miller and Martin McDonagh both with five bids. In addition to his four winning plays, Stoppard’s other nominations are courtesy of “Arcadia” (1995), “The Invention of Love” (2001), and “Rock ‘n’ Roll” (2008).

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