Tony Award for Best Performance by a Featured Actress in a Musical
Encyclopedia
This is a list of the winners and nominations of the Tony Award
Tony Award
The Antoinette Perry Award for Excellence in Theatre, more commonly known as a Tony Award, recognizes achievement in live Broadway theatre. The awards are presented by the American Theatre Wing and The Broadway League at an annual ceremony in New York City. The awards are given for Broadway...

 for the Best Performance by an Actress in a Featured Role in a Musical. The award, introduced in 1950, was previously named as Best Performance by a Featured or Supporting Actress in a Musical until 1976.

1950s

  • 1950: Juanita Hall
    Juanita Hall
    Juanita Hall was an American musical theatre and film actress. She is remembered for her roles in the original stage and screen versions of the Rodgers and Hammerstein musicals South Pacific as Bloody Mary and Flower Drum Song as Auntie Liang.-Biography:Born in Keyport, New Jersey, Hall received...

     – South Pacific
    South Pacific (musical)
    South Pacific is a musical with music by Richard Rodgers, lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II and book by Hammerstein and Joshua Logan. The story draws from James A. Michener's Pulitzer Prize-winning 1947 book Tales of the South Pacific, weaving together characters and elements from several of its...

    as Bloody Mary
    • No nominees

  • 1951: Isabel Bigley
    Isabel Bigley
    Isabel Bigley was an American actress, perhaps best remembered for originating the part of Sarah Brown in Frank Loesser's Guys and Dolls.-Biography:...

     – Guys and Dolls
    Guys and Dolls
    Guys and Dolls is a musical with music and lyrics by Frank Loesser and book by Jo Swerling and Abe Burrows. It is based on "The Idyll of Miss Sarah Brown" and "Blood Pressure", two short stories by Damon Runyon, and also borrows characters and plot elements from other Runyon stories, most notably...

    as Sarah Brown
    • No nominees

  • 1952: Helen Gallagher
    Helen Gallagher
    Helen Gallagher is an American actress, dancer, singer and makeup artist.-Early years:Born in Brooklyn, she was raised in Scarsdale, New York for several years until the Wall Street crash which heralded the Great Depression, and her family moved to the Bronx. Her parents separated and she was...

     – Pal Joey as Gladys Bumps
    • No nominees

  • 1953: Sheila Bond
    Sheila Bond
    Sheila Bond is an American actress, best known for her 1953 Tony Award-winning performance as "Fay Fromkin" in the Broadway musical Wish You Were Here.-Selected appearances:* 1947: Street Scene...

     – Wish You Were Here
    Wish You Were Here (musical)
    Wish You Were Here is a musical with a book by Arthur Kober and Joshua Logan and music and lyrics by Harold Rome. The musical was adapted from Kober's 1937 play, Having Wonderful Time, and revolves around a summer camp for adults.-Synopsis:...

    as Fay Fromkin
    • No nominees

  • 1954: Gwen Verdon
    Gwen Verdon
    Gwenyth Evelyn “Gwen” Verdon was an actress and dancer who won four Tony awards for her musical comedy performances. With flaming red hair and an endearing quaver in her voice, Verdon was a critically acclaimed dancer on Broadway in the 1950s and 1960s...

     – Can-Can
    Can-Can (musical)
    Can-Can is a musical with music and lyrics by Cole Porter, and a book by Abe Burrows. The story concerns the showgirls of the Montmartre dance halls during the 1890s....

    as Claudine
    • No nominees

  • 1955: Carol Haney
    Carol Haney
    Carol Haney was an American dancer and actress. After assisting Gene Kelly in choreographing films, Haney won a Tony Award for her role in The Pajama Game...

     – The Pajama Game
    The Pajama Game
    The Pajama Game is a musical based on the novel 7½ Cents by Richard Bissell. It features a score by Richard Adler and Jerry Ross. The story deals with labor troubles in a pajama factory, where worker demands for a seven-and-a-half cents raise are going unheeded...

    as Gladys
    • No nominees


  • 1956: Lotte Lenya
    Lotte Lenya
    Lotte Lenya was an Austrian singer, diseuse, and actress. In the German-speaking and classical music world she is best remembered for her performances of the songs of her husband, Kurt Weill. In English-language film she is remembered for her Academy Award-nominated role in The Roman Spring of Mrs...

     – The Threepenny Opera
    The Threepenny Opera
    The Threepenny Opera is a musical by German dramatist Bertolt Brecht and composer Kurt Weill, in collaboration with translator Elisabeth Hauptmann and set designer Caspar Neher. It was adapted from an 18th-century English ballad opera, John Gay's The Beggar's Opera, and offers a Marxist critique...

    as Jenny
    • Rae Allen
      Rae Allen
      Rae Allen is an American stage, film and television actress.-Biography:Allen was born as Raffaella Julia Theresa Abruzzo in Brooklyn, New York, the daughter of Julia and Joseph Abruzzo...

       – Damn Yankees
      Damn Yankees
      Damn Yankees is a musical comedy with a book by George Abbott and Douglass Wallop and music and lyrics by Richard Adler and Jerry Ross. The story is a modern retelling of the Faust legend set during the 1950s in Washington, D.C., during a time when the New York Yankees dominated Major League...

      as Gloria Thorpe
    • Pat Carroll
      Pat Carroll (actress)
      Patricia Ann “Pat” Carroll is an American actress. She performed in numerous stage productions, and portrayed the roles of "Bunny Halper" on CBS's The Danny Thomas Show, Shirley Feeney's mother on ABC's Laverne and Shirley, and is the voice of the villainous Ursula in The Little Mermaid film...

       – Catch a Star as various characters
    • Judy Tyler
      Judy Tyler
      Judy Tyler was an American actress.-Early life and career:Born Judith Mae Hess in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, she came from a show business family and was encouraged to study dance and acting...

       – Pipe Dream
      Pipe Dream (musical)
      Pipe Dream is the seventh stage musical by the team of Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II; it premiered on Broadway on November 30, 1955. The work is based on John Steinbeck's short novel Sweet Thursday—Steinbeck wrote the novel, a sequel to Cannery Row, in the hope of having it adapted into...

      as Suzy

  • 1957: Edie Adams
    Edie Adams
    Edie Adams was an American singer, Broadway, television and film actress and comedienne. Adams, a Tony Award winner, "both embodied and winked at the stereotypes of fetching chanteuse and sexpot blonde." She was well-known for her impersonations of female stars on stage and television, most...

     – Li'l Abner
    Li'l Abner (musical)
    Li'l Abner is a musical with a book by Norman Panama and Melvin Frank, music by Gene De Paul, and lyrics by Johnny Mercer.Based on the comic strip Li'l Abner by Al Capp, the show is, on the surface, a broad spoof of hillbillies but is also a pointed satire taking on any number of topics, ranging...

    as Daisy Mae
    • Virginia Gibson
      Virginia Gibson
      Virginia Gibson is an American dancer, singer and actress of film, television and musical theatre.-Career:...

       – Happy Hunting
      Happy Hunting
      Happy Hunting is a 1956 musical with a book by Howard Lindsay and Russel Crouse, lyrics by Matt Dubey, and music by Harold Karr. The plot focuses on wealthy Philadelphia Main Line widow Liz Livingstone and her efforts to find a royal husband for her daughter Beth.-Plot:Liz Livingston and her...

      as Beth Livingstone
    • Irra Petina
      Irra Petina
      Irra Petina was an actress and singer, as well as a leading contralto with the Metropolitan Opera in New York City. She was called the "floperetta queen" by critic Ken Mandelbaum.Born in St...

       – Candide
      Candide (operetta)
      Candide is an operetta with music composed by Leonard Bernstein, based on the novella of the same name by Voltaire. The operetta was first performed in 1956 with a libretto by Lillian Hellman; but since 1974 it has been generally performed with a book by Hugh Wheeler which is more faithful to...

      as Old Lady
    • Jo Sullivan
      Jo Sullivan
      Elizabeth Josephine "Jo" Sullivan Loesser is an American soprano and the widow of composer Frank Loesser. Her daughter, Emily Loesser, is also a singer-actress....

       – The Most Happy Fella
      The Most Happy Fella
      The Most Happy Fella is a 1956 musical with a book, music, and lyrics by Frank Loesser. The story, about a romance between an older man and younger woman, is based on the play They Knew What They Wanted by Sidney Howard...

      as Rosabella

  • 1958: Barbara Cook
    Barbara Cook
    Barbara Cook is an American singer and actress who first came to prominence in the 1950s after starring in the original Broadway musicals Candide and The Music Man among others, winning a Tony Award for the latter...

     – The Music Man
    The Music Man
    The Music Man is a musical with book, music, and lyrics by Meredith Willson, based on a story by Willson and Franklin Lacey. The plot concerns con man Harold Hill, who poses as a boys' band organizer and leader and sells band instruments and uniforms to naive townsfolk before skipping town with...

    as Marian Paroo
    • Susan Johnson – Oh, Captain!
      Oh, Captain!
      Oh, Captain! is a musical comedy based on the film The Captain's Paradise, which had been written by Alec Coppel and Nicholas Phipps. The film starred Alec Guinness as a philandering ship's captain, with a wife in one port and a mistress in another. The musical starred Tony Randall, and updated the...

      as Mae
    • Carol Lawrence – West Side Story as Maria
    • Jacquelyn McKeever – Oh, Captain!
      Oh, Captain!
      Oh, Captain! is a musical comedy based on the film The Captain's Paradise, which had been written by Alec Coppel and Nicholas Phipps. The film starred Alec Guinness as a philandering ship's captain, with a wife in one port and a mistress in another. The musical starred Tony Randall, and updated the...

      as Mrs. Maud St. James
    • Josephine Premice – Jamaica
      Jamaica (musical)
      Jamaica is a musical with a book by Yip Harburg and Fred Saidy, lyrics by Harburg, and music by Harold Arlen. Harburg was blacklisted in Hollywood at the time of the writing of the musical...

      as Ginger

  • 1959: Pat Stanley
    Pat Stanley
    Pat Stanley is an American actress, dancer and singer.-Family:She was married to songwriter Johnny Burke, and later to writer William Hanley with whom she had two daughters, Nell and Katherine. She has three granddaughters Darsen, Sophia, and Mabel.Since 1980 she had been married to third...

     – Goldilocks as Lois Lee
    • Julienne Marie – Whoop-Up
      Whoop-Up
      Whoop-Up is a musical with a music by Mark Charlap, lyrics by Norman Gimbel, and book by Cy Feuer and Ernest Martin, based on “Stay Away, Joe” by Dan Cushman...

      as Mary Champlain


1960s

  • 1960: Patricia Neway
    Patricia Neway
    Patricia Neway is an American operatic soprano and musical theatre actress who had an active international career during the mid-1940s through the 1970s. She is particularly remembered for creating roles in the world premieres of several contemporary American operas, most notably Magda Sorel in...

     – The Sound of Music
    The Sound of Music
    The Sound of Music is a musical by Richard Rodgers, lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II and a book by Howard Lindsay and Russel Crouse. It is based on the memoir of Maria von Trapp, The Story of the Trapp Family Singers...

    as Mother Abbess
    • Sandra Church
      Sandra Church
      Sandra Church is an American actress in films and theatre, primarily known for her performance as Gypsy Rose Lee in the 1959 musical Gypsy: A Musical Fable, for which she was nominated for a Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Musical.- Early life :Church was born and raised in San...

       – Gypsy
      Gypsy: A Musical Fable
      Gypsy is a musical with music by Jule Styne, lyrics by Stephen Sondheim, and a book by Arthur Laurents. Gypsy is loosely based on the 1957 memoirs of Gypsy Rose Lee, the famous striptease artist, and focuses on her mother, Rose, whose name has become synonymous with "the ultimate show business...

      as Louise
    • Pert Kelton
      Pert Kelton
      Pert Kelton was an American vaudeville, movie, radio and television actress. She was the first actress who played Alice Kramden in The Honeymooners with Jackie Gleason and was a prominent comedic supporting film actress in the 1930s...

       – Greenwillow
      Greenwillow
      Greenwillow is a musical with a book by Lesser Samuels and Frank Loesser and music and lyrics by Loesser.Based on the novel by B. J. Chute, the fantasy is set in the magical town of Greenwillow, where the eldest in each generation of Briggs men must obey the "call to wander," while the women they...

      as Gramma Briggs
    • Lauri Peters
      Lauri Peters
      Lauri Peters is an American actress, dancer, singer, drama teacher and author. Birth name - Patricia Peterson.Peters created the role of Liesl Von Trapp in the original 1959 Broadway production of The Sound of Music. She received a Tony Award nomination for Best Supporting or Featured Actress in...

       and the Children (Kathy Dunn, Evanna Lien, Mary Susan Locke, Marilyn Rogers, William Snowden, Joseph Stewart)The Sound of Music
      The Sound of Music
      The Sound of Music is a musical by Richard Rodgers, lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II and a book by Howard Lindsay and Russel Crouse. It is based on the memoir of Maria von Trapp, The Story of the Trapp Family Singers...

      as the Von Trapp children

  • 1961: Tammy Grimes
    Tammy Grimes
    -Early life:Grimes was born in Lynn, Massachusetts, the daughter of Eola Willard , a naturalist and spiritualist, and Nicholas Luther Grimes, an innkeeper, country-club manager, and farmer. She attended high school at the then-all girls school, Beaver Country Day School, in Chestnut Hill,...

     – The Unsinkable Molly Brown
    The Unsinkable Molly Brown (musical)
    The Unsinkable Molly Brown is a musical with music and lyrics by Meredith Willson and book by Richard Morris. The plot is a fictionalized account of the life of Margaret Brown, who survived the sinking of the RMS Titanic, and her wealthy miner-husband....

    as Molly Tobin
    • Nancy Dussault – Do Re Mi
      Do Re Mi (musical)
      Do Re Mi is a musical with music by Jule Styne, lyrics by Betty Comden and Adolph Green, and a book by Garson Kanin, who also directed the original 1960 Broadway production. The plot centers on a minor-league con man who decides to go straight by going into the business of juke boxes and music...

      as Tilda Mullen
    • Chita Rivera
      Chita Rivera
      Chita Rivera is an American actress, dancer, and singer best known for her roles in musical theater. She is the first Hispanic woman to receive a Kennedy Center Honors award...

       – Bye Bye Birdie as Rosie Alverez

  • 1962: Phyllis Newman
    Phyllis Newman
    Phyllis Newman is an American actress and singer. She was nominated twice for the Drama Desk Award and won the Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Musical.-Early life:...

     – Subways Are For Sleeping
    Subways Are For Sleeping
    Subways Are for Sleeping is a musical with a book and lyrics by Betty Comden and Adolph Green and music by Jule Styne. The original Broadway production played in 1961-62....

    as Martha Vail
    • Elizabeth Allen – The Gay Life
      The Gay Life
      The Gay Life is a musical with a book by Fay and Michael Kanin, lyrics by Howard Dietz, and music by Arthur Schwartz.Based on a cycle of seven short plays by Arthur Schnitzler, published in 1893 and first staged in 1910, The Gay Life focuses on womanizing playboy Anatol Von Huber...

      as Magda
    • Barbara Harris
      Barbara Harris (actress)
      Barbara Harris is an American actress who was a Broadway stage star and later became a film actress. She appeared in such films as A Thousand Clowns, Plaza Suite, Nashville, Family Plot, Freaky Friday, Peggy Sue Got Married, and Grosse Pointe Blank...

       – From the Second City as various characters
    • Barbra Streisand
      Barbra Streisand
      Barbra Joan Streisand is an American singer, actress, film producer and director. She has won two Academy Awards, eight Grammy Awards, four Emmy Awards, a Special Tony Award, an American Film Institute award, a Peabody Award, and is one of the few entertainers who have won an Oscar, Emmy, Grammy,...

       – I Can Get It for You Wholesale
      I Can Get It for You Wholesale
      I Can Get It for You Wholesale is a musical with music and lyrics by Harold Rome and a book by Jerome Weidman based on his 1937 novel of the same title. It marked the Broadway debut of 19-year-old Barbra Streisand, who was nominated for the Tony Award for Best Performance by a Featured Actress in...

      as Mrs. Marmelstein

  • 1963: Anna Quayle
    Anna Quayle
    Anna Quayle is an English actress. Her father was the stage actor Douglas Quayle.She has appeared on film, on stage, and on television...

     – Stop the World - I Want to Get Off
    Stop the World - I Want to Get Off
    Stop the World – I Want to Get Off is a musical with a book, music, and lyrics by Leslie Bricusse and Anthony Newley.Set against the backdrop of a circus, it focuses on Littlechap, whose first major step towards improving his lot is to marry Evie, his boss's daughter...

    as Evie/other women
    • Ruth Kobart
      Ruth Kobart
      Ruth Kobart was an American performer, whose six-decade career encompassed opera, Broadway musical theatre, regional theatre, films, and television.-Life and career:...

       – A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum
      A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum
      A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum is a musical with music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim and book by Burt Shevelove and Larry Gelbart....

      as Domina
    • Virginia Martin – Little Me
      Little Me
      Little Me was the parody "confessional" self-indulgent autobiography of "Belle Poitrine" , subtitled The Intimate Memoirs of the Great Star of Stage, Screen and Television, by Patrick Dennis, who had achieved a great success with Auntie Mame...

      as Young Belle
    • Louise Troy
      Louise Troy
      Louise Troy was an American actress of stage and screen. She is best known for her performances in Tovarich and Walking Happy , both of which she was nominated for a Tony Award...

       – Tovarich
      Tovarich (musical)
      Tovarich is a 1963 musical play in two acts with book by David Shaw; music by Lee Pockriss and lyrics by Anne Croswell; based on the comedy by Jacques Deval and Robert E...

      as Natalia Mayovskaya

  • 1964: Tessie O'Shea
    Tessie O'Shea
    Teresa Mary "Tessie" O'Shea was a Welsh entertainer and actress.Born in Cardiff to Nellie Theresa and James Peter O'Shea, a soldier who was the son of Irish emigrants, Tessie was reared in the British music hall tradition, appearing on stage as "The Wonder of Wales" as early as the age of six...

     – The Girl Who Came to Supper
    The Girl Who Came to Supper
    The Girl Who Came to Supper is a musical with a book by Harry Kurnitz and music and lyrics by Noël Coward.Based on Terence Rattigan's 1953 play The Sleeping Prince, it is set in 1911 London at the time of George V's coronation...

    as Ada Cockle
    • Julienne Marie – Foxy
      Foxy (musical)
      Foxy is a musical with a book by Ian McLellan Hunter and Ring Lardner, Jr., lyrics by Johnny Mercer, and music by Robert Emmett Dolan.Based on Ben Jonson's Volpone, it transports the original play's setting of early-17th century Renaissance Venice to the Yukon during the gold rush of 1898...

      as Celia
    • Kay Medford
      Kay Medford
      Kay Medford , was an American character actress and comedienne.She was born Margaret Kathleen O'Regan in New York City to James and Mary O'Regan, first-generation Irish-American parents, both of whom had died by the time she was 15 years old...

       – Funny Girl as Mrs. Brice
    • Louise Troy
      Louise Troy
      Louise Troy was an American actress of stage and screen. She is best known for her performances in Tovarich and Walking Happy , both of which she was nominated for a Tony Award...

       – High Spirits
      High Spirits (musical)
      High Spirits is a musical with a book, lyrics, and music by Hugh Martin and Timothy Gray, based on the play Blithe Spirit by Noël Coward, about a man's problems caused by the spirit of his dead wife....

      as Ruth Condomine


  • 1965: Maria Karnilova
    Maria Karnilova
    Maria Karnilova was an American actress.Born as Maria Kasnilovich in Hartford, Connecticut, Maria Karnilova made her Broadway debut in Call Me Mister in 1946...

     – Fiddler on the Roof
    Fiddler on the Roof
    Fiddler on the Roof is a musical with music by Jerry Bock, lyrics by Sheldon Harnick, and book by Joseph Stein, set in Tsarist Russia in 1905. It is based on Tevye and his Daughters by Sholem Aleichem...

    as Golde
    • Luba Lisa – I Had a Ball
      I Had a Ball
      I Had a Ball is a musical with a book by Jerome Chodorov and music and lyrics by Jack Lawrence and Stan Freeman.Set on the Coney Island boardwalk, it focuses on matchmaking fortune teller Garside, who finds love with floozy Addie, and recent parolee Stan, who becomes involved with Ferris wheel...

      as Addie
    • Carrie Nye
      Carrie Nye
      -Early life:Nye was born Caroline Nye McGeoy in Greenwood, Mississippi; her father was a vice president of a local bank. She attended Stephens College and then went on to the Yale School of Drama.-Career:...

       – Half a Sixpence
      Half a Sixpence
      Half a Sixpence is a musical comedy written as a vehicle for British pop star Tommy Steele.It is based on H.G. Wells's novel Kipps: The Story of a Simple Soul...

      as Helen Walsingham
    • Barbara Windsor
      Barbara Windsor
      Barbara Ann Windsor, MBE , better known by her stage name Barbara Windsor, is an English actress. Her best known roles are in the Carry On films and as Peggy Mitchell in the BBC soap opera EastEnders....

       – Oh! What a Lovely War
      Oh! What a Lovely War
      Oh! What a Lovely War is a musical film based on the stage musical Oh, What a Lovely War! originated by Charles Chilton as a radio play, The Long Long Trail in December 1961, and transferred to stage by Gerry Raffles in partnership with Joan Littlewood and her Theatre Workshop created in 1963,...

      as various characters

  • 1966: Beatrice Arthur
    Beatrice Arthur
    Beatrice "Bea" Arthur was an American actress, comedienne and singer whose career spanned seven decades. Arthur achieved fame as the character Maude Findlay on the 1970s sitcoms All in the Family and Maude, and as Dorothy Zbornak on the 1980s sitcom The Golden Girls, winning Emmy Awards for both...

     – Mame as Vera Charles
    • Helen Gallagher
      Helen Gallagher
      Helen Gallagher is an American actress, dancer, singer and makeup artist.-Early years:Born in Brooklyn, she was raised in Scarsdale, New York for several years until the Wall Street crash which heralded the Great Depression, and her family moved to the Bronx. Her parents separated and she was...

       – Sweet Charity
      Sweet Charity
      Sweet Charity is a musical with music by Cy Coleman, lyrics by Dorothy Fields and book by Neil Simon. It was directed and choreographed for Broadway by Bob Fosse starring his wife and muse Gwen Verdon. It is based on Federico Fellini's screenplay for Nights of Cabiria...

      as Nickie
    • Patricia Marand
      Patricia Marand
      Patricia Marand was an American actress. She was nominated for a 1966 Tony Award for her part as Lois Lane in the musical "It's a Bird ... It's a Plane ... It's Superman". She also appeared in the 1952 musical Wish You Were Here. She was a regular on The Merv Griffin Show.Marand died at the age of...

       – It's a Bird...It's a Plane...It's Superman
      It's a Bird...It's a Plane...It's Superman
      It's A Bird... It's A Plane... It's Superman is a musical with music by Charles Strouse and lyrics by Lee Adams, with a book by David Newman and Robert Benton. It is based on the comic book character Superman created by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster and published by DC Comics.-Synopsis:The plot...

      as Lois Lane
    • Charlotte Rae
      Charlotte Rae
      Charlotte Rae is a prolific American character actress of stage, comedienne, singer and dancer, who in her six decades of television is perhaps best known for her portrayal of Edna Garrett in the sitcoms Diff'rent Strokes and The Facts of Life...

       – Pickwick
      Pickwick (musical)
      Pickwick is a musical with a book by Wolf Mankowitz, music by Cyril Ornadel, and lyrics by Leslie Bricusse. Based on The Pickwick Papers by Charles Dickens, it is set in and around London and Rochester in 1828....

      as Mrs. Bardell

  • 1967: Peg Murray
    Peg Murray
    Margaret L. "Peg" Murray is an American actress of stage, musical theatre and television.Murray won a Tony Award for her performance as the vile "Fraulein Kost" in the original production of Cabaret, directed by Hal Prince...

     – Cabaret
    Cabaret (musical)
    Cabaret is a musical based on a book written by Christopher Isherwood, music by John Kander and lyrics by Fred Ebb. The 1966 Broadway production became a hit and spawned a 1972 film as well as numerous subsequent productions....

    as Fraulein Kost
    • Leland Palmer
      Leland Palmer
      Leland Palmer is a fictional character from the television series Twin Peaks, created by David Lynch and Mark Frost. He also appears in the prequel, Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me....

       – A Joyful Noise
      A Joyful Noise
      A Joyful Noise is a musical with a book by Edward Padula and music and lyrics by Oscar Brand and Paul Nassau. The 1966 Broadway production was a flop but introduced choreographer Michael Bennett in his Broadway debut....

      as Miss Jimmie
    • Josephine Premice – A Hand is on the Gate
      A Hand Is On The Gate
      A Hand Is On The Gate is a play presented off-Broadway in 1966 that was actor Roscoe Lee Browne's Broadway directorial debut. Josephine Premice received a Tony nomination for her performance....

      as various characters
    • Susan Watson
      Susan Watson
      Susan Watson is an American actress and singer best known for her roles in musical theatre.Watson's first professional role was Velma in the original West End production of West Side Story in 1958. She created the role of Luisa in The Fantasticks and then played Kim on Broadway in Bye Bye Birdie,...

       – A Joyful Noise
      A Joyful Noise
      A Joyful Noise is a musical with a book by Edward Padula and music and lyrics by Oscar Brand and Paul Nassau. The 1966 Broadway production was a flop but introduced choreographer Michael Bennett in his Broadway debut....

      as Jenny Lee

  • 1968: Lillian Hayman
    Lillian Hayman
    Lillian Irene Hayman was a Tony Award-winning African American actress and singer.-Career:Born in Baltimore, Maryland, Hayman graduated from Wilberforce University with a BA before she began her career in the Broadway theatre...

     – Hallelujah, Baby!
    Hallelujah, Baby!
    Hallelujah, Baby! is a musical with music by Jule Styne, lyrics by Adolph Green and Betty Comden, and a book by Arthur Laurents. The show is "a musical chronicle of the African American struggle for equality during the [first half of the] 20th century."...

    as Momma
    • Geula Gill – The Grand Music Hall of Israel as various characters
    • Julie Gregg
      Julie Gregg
      Julie Gregg is an American television, film and stage actress. She generally played supporting or guest, but not lead, roles. She is best known for her portrayal of Sandra Corleone in The Godfather...

       – The Happy Time
      The Happy Time (musical)
      The Happy Time is a musical with music by John Kander, lyrics by Fred Ebb, and a book by N. Richard Nash loosely based on a 1950 hit Broadway play, The Happy Time by Samuel A. Taylor, which was in turn based on stories by Robert Fontaine...

      as Laurie Mannon
    • Alice Playten
      Alice Playten
      Alice Playten was an American actress and singer.-Life and career:Born Alice Plotkin in New York City, Playten began her career in the Broadway musical Gypsy...

       – Henry, Sweet Henry
      Henry, Sweet Henry
      Henry, Sweet Henry is a musical with a book by Nunnally Johnson and music and lyrics by Bob Merrill.Based on the novel The World of Henry Orient by Johnson's daughter Nora and the subsequent film of the same name, the plot focuses on Valerie and Marian, two wealthy, love-struck teenagers who stalk...

      as Kafritz

  • 1969: Marian Mercer
    Marian Mercer
    Marian Ethel Mercer was an American actress and singer.Born in Akron, Ohio, she graduated from the University of Michigan, then spent several seasons working in summer stock. She made her Broadway debut in the chorus of the short-lived musical, Greenwillow in 1960...

     – Promises, Promises
    Promises, Promises
    Promises, Promises is a musical based on the 1960 film The Apartment. The music is by Burt Bacharach, lyrics by Hal David, and book by Neil Simon. Musical numbers for the original Broadway production were choreographed by Michael Bennett; Robert Moore directed and David Merrick produced...

    as Marge MacDougall
    • Sandy Duncan
      Sandy Duncan
      Sandra Kay "Sandy" Duncan is an American singer, dancer and actress of stage and television, recognized through a blonde, pixie cut hairstyle and perky demeanor...

       – Canterbury Tales
      Canterbury Tales - Musical
      Canterbury Tales is a musical originally presented at the Oxford Playhouse in 1964, conceived and directed by Martin Starkie and written by Nevill Coghill & Martin Starkie. It was expanded into a full length musical and presented at the Phoenix Theatre, London on 21 March 1968. As late as in August...

      as Allison/May/Molly
    • Lorraine Serabian – Zorba
      Zorba the Greek (musical)
      Zorba is a musical with a book by Joseph Stein, lyrics by Fred Ebb, and music by John Kander. Adapted from the 1952 novel Zorba the Greek by Nikos Kazantzakis and the subsequent 1964 film of the same name, it focuses on the friendship that evolves between Zorba and Nikos, a young American who has...

      as leader
    • Virginia Vestoff
      Virginia Vestoff
      Virginia Vestoff was an American actress of film, television and Broadway.Vestoff was born into a family of vaudeville performers in New York City. Both her Russian immigrant father and mother, who was the great niece of American composer Stephen Foster, died and left Virginia an orphan at the age...

       – 1776
      1776 (musical)
      1776 is a musical with music and lyrics by Sherman Edwards and a book by Peter Stone. The story is based on the events surrounding the signing of the Declaration of Independence...

      as Abigail Adams


1970s

  • 1970: Melba Moore
    Melba Moore
    Beatrice Melba Smith , known by her stage name, Melba Moore is an American disco, R&B singer and actress. She is the daughter of saxophonist Teddy Hill and R&B singer Bonnie Davis.-Early life:...

     – Purlie
    Purlie
    Purlie is a musical with a book by Ossie Davis, Philip Rose, and Peter Udell, lyrics by Udell, and music by Gary Geld. It is based on Davis' 1961 play Purlie Victorious, which was later made into the 1963 film Gone Are the Days! and which included all of the original Broadway cast, including Ruby...

    as Lutibelle
    • Bonnie Franklin
      Bonnie Franklin
      Bonnie Gail Franklin is an American actress, best known for her starring role in the television series One Day at a Time.-Personal life:...

       – Applause
      Applause (musical)
      Applause is a musical with a book by Betty Comden and Adolph Green, lyrics by Lee Adams, and music by Charles Strouse. It won the Tony Award for Best Musical and Lauren Bacall won the Tony for Best Actress in a Musical....

      as Bonnie
    • Penny Fuller
      Penny Fuller
      Penny Fuller is an American actress.Born in Durham, North Carolina, Fuller attended Northwestern University in Illinois. She then went to New York City to make a name for herself on Broadway...

       – Applause
      Applause (musical)
      Applause is a musical with a book by Betty Comden and Adolph Green, lyrics by Lee Adams, and music by Charles Strouse. It won the Tony Award for Best Musical and Lauren Bacall won the Tony for Best Actress in a Musical....

      as Eve Harrington
    • Melissa Hart
      Melissa Hart (actress)
      Melissa Hart is an American actress, singer, and teacher. She made her Broadway debut in 1966 as an ensemble member in Jerry Bock's The Apple Tree. As Barbara Harris's understudy, she replaced the actress as the various heroines in that musical for several performances...

       – Georgy
      Georgy
      Georgy is a musical with a book by Tom Mankiewicz, lyrics by Carole Bayer, and music by George Fischoff.Based on the Margaret Forster novel Georgy Girl and the subsequent 1966 film adaptation, it tells the story of awkward, overweight, dowdy music teacher Georgy; her beautiful, self-centered...

      as Meredith

  • 1971: Patsy Kelly
    Patsy Kelly
    Patsy Kelly was an American stage and film comedic actress.-Early life and career:Kelly was born Sarah Veronica Rose Kelly in Brooklyn, New York to Irish immigrants, John and Delia Kelly, and made her Broadway debut in 1928...

     – No, No Nanette as Paulene
    • Barbara Barrie
      Barbara Barrie
      Barbara Barrie is an American actress and author of children's books.-Personal life:Barrie was born as Barbara Ann Berman in Chicago, Illinois, of Jewish heritage, the daughter of Frances Rose and Louis Berman. She was raised in Corpus Christi, Texas. She graduated from University of Texas,...

       – Company
      Company (musical)
      Company is a musical with a book by George Furth and music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim. The original production was nominated for a record-setting fourteen Tony Awards and won six....

      as Sarah
    • Pamela Myers
      Pamela Myers
      Pamela Myers is an American actress who made her Broadway debut as Marta in Stephen Sondheim's musical Company. For this role, in which she introduced the show-stopping number, "Another Hundred People," she was nominated at the 1971 Tony awards for Best Performance by a Featured Actress in a Musical...

       – Company
      Company (musical)
      Company is a musical with a book by George Furth and music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim. The original production was nominated for a record-setting fourteen Tony Awards and won six....

      as Marta

  • 1972: Linda Hopkins
    Linda Hopkins
    Linda Hopkins is an African American actress and blues and gospel singer. She has recorded classic, traditional, and urban blues, and performed R&B and soul, jazz, and show tunes, all with distinction and style since the 1950s....

     – Inner City as various characters
    • Adrienne Barbeau
      Adrienne Barbeau
      Adrienne Jo Barbeau is an American actress and the author of three books. Barbeau came to prominence in the 1970s as Broadway's original Rizzo in the musical Grease, and as Carol Traynor, the divorced daughter of Maude Findlay in the sitcom Maude...

       – Grease
      Grease (musical)
      Grease is a 1971 musical by Jim Jacobs and Warren Casey. The musical is named for the 1950s United States working-class youth subculture known as the greasers. The musical, set in 1959 at fictional Rydell High School , follows ten working-class teenagers as they navigate the complexities of love,...

      as Betty Rizzo
    • Bernadette Peters
      Bernadette Peters
      Bernadette Peters is an American actress, singer and children's book author from Ozone Park, Queens, New York. Over the course of a career that has spanned five decades, she has starred in musical theatre, films and television, as well as performing in solo concerts and recordings...

       – On the Town as Hildy
    • Beatrice Winde
      Beatrice Winde
      Beatrice Winde was an American actress.Born Beatrice Lucille Williams in Chicago, she graduated from the Chicago Music Conservatory as a voice student and continued her voice studies briefly at the Yale University School of Music and at Juilliard.Winde appeared on Broadway in the 1971 Melvin Van...

       – Ain't Supposed to Die a Natural Death
      Ain't Supposed to Die a Natural Death
      Ain't Supposed to Die a Natural Death is a musical with a book, music, and lyrics by Melvin Van Peebles. The musical contains some material also on three of Van Peebles' albums, Br'er Soul, Ain't Supposed to Die a Natural Death and As Serious as a Heart-Attack, some of which were yet to come...

      as various characters

  • 1973: Patricia Elliott
    Patricia Elliott
    Patricia Elliott is an American actress. She graduated from South High School in Denver.With many appearances on television, film and stage, Elliott currently portrays Renee Divine Buchanan on the ABC soap opera One Life to Live, a role she has played on-and-off since 1987...

     – A Little Night Music
    A Little Night Music
    A Little Night Music is a musical with music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim and book by Hugh Wheeler. Inspired by the Ingmar Bergman film Smiles of a Summer Night, it involves the romantic lives of several couples. Its title is a literal English translation of the German name for Mozart's Serenade...

    as Countess Charlotte Malcolm
    • Hermione Gingold
      Hermione Gingold
      Hermione Gingold was an English actress known for her sharp-tongued, eccentric persona, an image enhanced by her sharp nose and chin, as well as her deepening voice, a result of vocal nodes which her mother reportedly encouraged her not to remove. She starred on stage, on radio, in films, on...

       – A Little Night Music
      A Little Night Music
      A Little Night Music is a musical with music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim and book by Hugh Wheeler. Inspired by the Ingmar Bergman film Smiles of a Summer Night, it involves the romantic lives of several couples. Its title is a literal English translation of the German name for Mozart's Serenade...

      as Madame Armfeldt
    • Patsy Kelly
      Patsy Kelly
      Patsy Kelly was an American stage and film comedic actress.-Early life and career:Kelly was born Sarah Veronica Rose Kelly in Brooklyn, New York to Irish immigrants, John and Delia Kelly, and made her Broadway debut in 1928...

       – Irene
      Irene (musical)
      Irene is a musical with a book by James Montgomery, lyrics by Joseph McCarthy, and music by Harry Tierney.Based on Montgomery's play Irene O'Dare, it is set in New York City's Upper West Side and focuses on immigrant shop assistant Irene O'Dare, who is introduced to Long Island's high society when...

      as Mrs. O'Dare
    • Irene Ryan
      Irene Ryan
      Irene Ryan was an American actress, one of the few entertainers who found success in vaudeville, radio, film, television and Broadway....

       – Pippin
      Pippin (musical)
      Pippin is a musical with music and lyrics by Stephen Schwartz and a book by Roger O. Hirson. Bob Fosse, who directed the original Broadway production, also contributed to the libretto...

      as Berthe

  • 1974: Janie Sell
    Janie Sell
    Jane Ann "Janie" Sell is an American actress.-Career:Sell won the Tony as Best Featured Actress in a Musical for Over Here!, which also starred the then-surviving Andrews Sisters, Maxene and Patty...

     – Over Here!
    Over Here!
    Over Here! is a musical with a score by Richard M. Sherman and Robert B. Sherman and book by Will Holt. The original Broadway production was directed by Tom Moore and choreographed by Patricia Birch, with scenic design by Douglas W. Schmidt and costumes by Carrie F...

    as Mitzi
    • Leigh Beery – Cyrano
      Cyrano (musical)
      Cyrano is a musical with a book and lyrics by Anthony Burgess and music by Michael J. Lewis.Based on Edmond Rostand's classic 1897 play of the same name, it focuses on a love triangle involving the large-nosed poetic Cyrano de Bergerac, his beautiful cousin Roxana, and his classically handsome but...

      as Roxana
    • Maureen Brennan
      Maureen Brennan
      Dame Maureen Brennan is headteacher at Barr Beacon Language College in Walsall, West Midlands. She took over leadership of this school in Easter 2007 after spending several years as the Principal of Hillcrest School and Community College in Netherton, West Midlands...

       – Candide
      Candide (operetta)
      Candide is an operetta with music composed by Leonard Bernstein, based on the novella of the same name by Voltaire. The operetta was first performed in 1956 with a libretto by Lillian Hellman; but since 1974 it has been generally performed with a book by Hugh Wheeler which is more faithful to...

      as Cunegonde
    • June Gable
      June Gable
      June Gable is an American Character actress, best known for her role as Estelle Leonard of The Estelle Leonard Talent Agency in the American sitcom Friends.-Life and career:...

       – Candide
      Candide (operetta)
      Candide is an operetta with music composed by Leonard Bernstein, based on the novella of the same name by Voltaire. The operetta was first performed in 1956 with a libretto by Lillian Hellman; but since 1974 it has been generally performed with a book by Hugh Wheeler which is more faithful to...

      as Old Lady
    • Ernestine Jackson
      Ernestine Jackson
      Ernestine Jackson is an African American actress and singer.Born in Corpus Christi, Texas, Jackson made her Broadway debut in 1967 as Irene Molloy in the all-black cast of Hello, Dolly! starring Pearl Bailey....

       – Raisin
      Raisin (musical)
      Raisin is a musical theatre adaptation of the Lorraine Hansberry play A Raisin in the Sun, with songs by Judd Woldin and Robert Brittan, and a book by Robert Nemiroff and Charlotte Zaltzberg....

      as Ruth Younger


  • 1975: Dee Dee Bridgewater
    Dee Dee Bridgewater
    Dee Dee Bridgewater is an American Jazz singer. She is a three-time Grammy Award winning singer-songwriter, as well as a Tony Award - winning stage actress and host of National Public Radio's syndicated radio show JazzSet with Dee Dee Bridgewater...

     – The Wiz
    The Wiz
    The Wiz: The Super Soul Musical "Wonderful Wizard of Oz" is a musical with music and lyrics by Charlie Smalls and book by William F. Brown. It is a retelling of L. Frank Baum's The Wonderful Wizard of Oz in the context of African American culture. It opened on October 21, 1974 at the Morris A...

    as Glinda, the Good Witch of the South
    • Susan Browning
      Susan Browning
      Susan Browning was an American actress.Born in Baldwin, New York, she was nominated for two Tony Awards: for Best Actress in Company in 1971 and for Best Featured Actress in a Musical in Goodtime Charley in 1975...

       – Goodtime Charley
      Goodtime Charley
      Goodtime Charley is a musical with a book by Sidney Michaels, music by Larry Grossman, and lyrics by Hal Hackady.A humorous take on actual historical events, it focuses on the Dauphin of France, who evolves from a hedonistic young man enamored of women in general into a regal king while Joan...

      as Agnes Sorel
    • Zan Charisse – Gypsy as Louise
    • Taina Elg
      Taina Elg
      Taina Elg is a Finnish-American actress and dancer. She has appeared on stage, film and television.-Biography:She was born in Helsinki, but later raised in Turku by her parents, Helena Dobroumova and Åke Elg, a pianist. In 1957 she won the Golden Globe for the Foreign Newcomer Award - Female...

       – Where's Charley?
      Where's Charley?
      Where's Charley? is a musical with music and lyrics by Frank Loesser and book by George Abbott. The story was based on the play Charley's Aunt by Brandon Thomas. The musical debuted on Broadway in 1948 and was revived on Broadway and in the West End...

      as Donna Lucia D'Alvadorez
    • Kelly Garrett – The Night That Made America Famous
      The Night That Made America Famous
      The Night That Made America Famous is a musical written by folk singer Harry Chapin. After fourteen previews, the production opened at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre on February 26, 1975 and closed on April 6 of that year, after 75 performances. Chapin's brothers Tom and Stephen, in addition to...

      as various characters
    • Donna Theodore
      Donna Theodore
      Donna Theodore is an American Actress and singer who first came to attention as a headliner at many famous nightclubs during the 1960s including the Copacabana, The Fountainebleau Hotel, the Fairmont Hotel, and the El San Juan in Puerto Rico...

       – Shenandoah
      Shenandoah (musical)
      Shenandoah is a musical that was written in 1975 with music by Gary Geld, lyrics by Peter Udell, and a book by Udell, Philip Rose and James Lee Barrett, based on Barrett's original screenplay for the 1965 film Shenandoah.-Productions:...

      as Anna

  • 1976: Kelly Bishop
    Kelly Bishop
    Carole "Kelly" Bishop is an American actress and dancer, best-known for her roles as matriarch Emily Gilmore on the series Gilmore Girls, and as the mother of Jennifer Grey's character in the film Dirty Dancing...

     – A Chorus Line
    A Chorus Line
    A Chorus Line is a 1975 musical about Broadway dancers auditioning for spots on a chorus line. The book was authored by James Kirkwood, Jr. and Nicholas Dante, lyrics were written by Edward Kleban, and music was composed by Marvin Hamlisch....

    as Sheila Bryant
    • Priscilla Lopez
      Priscilla Lopez
      Priscilla Lopez is an American singer, dancer, and actress.-Early life:Lopez was born in the Bronx, New York to Francisco Lopez, a hotel banquet foreman and Laura , who were moved to New York from their native Puerto Rico...

       – A Chorus Line
      A Chorus Line
      A Chorus Line is a 1975 musical about Broadway dancers auditioning for spots on a chorus line. The book was authored by James Kirkwood, Jr. and Nicholas Dante, lyrics were written by Edward Kleban, and music was composed by Marvin Hamlisch....

      as Diana Morales
    • Patti LuPone
      Patti LuPone
      Patti Ann LuPone is an American singer and actress, known for her Tony Award-winning performances as Eva Perón in the 1979 stage musical Evita and as Madame Rose in the 2008 Broadway revival of Gypsy, and for her Olivier Award-winning performance as Fantine in the original London cast of Les...

       – The Robber Bridegroom
      The Robber Bridegroom (musical)
      The Robber Bridegroom is a musical with a book and lyrics by Alfred Uhry and music by Robert Waldman. The story is based on the 1942 novella by Eudora Welty of the same name, with a Robin Hood-like hero; the adaptation placed it in a late 18th century American setting...

      as Rosamund
    • Virginia Seidel – Very Good Eddie
      Very Good Eddie
      Very Good Eddie is a musical with a book by Guy Bolton and Philip Bartholomae, music by Jerome Kern, and lyrics by Schuyler Green and Herbert Reynolds, with additional lyrics by Elsie Janis, Harry B. Smith and John E. Hazzard and additional music by Henry Kailimai. The story was based on the farce...

      as Mrs. Elsie Darling

  • 1977: Delores Hall
    Delores Hall
    Delores Hall is an American stage and television actress who made her Broadway debut as a replacement in the ensemble of Hair.-Musical theatre career:...

     – Your Arms Too Short to Box with God
    Your Arms Too Short to Box with God
    Your Arms Too Short to Box with God: A Soaring Celebration in Song and Dance is a Broadway musical based on the Biblical Book of Matthew, with music and lyrics by Alex Bradford and a book by Vinnette Carroll, who also directed...

    as various characters
    • Ellen Greene
      Ellen Greene
      Ellen Greene is an American singer and actress. Greene has had a long and varied career as a singer, particularly in cabaret, as an actor and singer in numerous stage productions, particularly musical theatre, as well as having performed in many films – notably Little Shop of Horrors...

       – The Threepenny Opera
      The Threepenny Opera
      The Threepenny Opera is a musical by German dramatist Bertolt Brecht and composer Kurt Weill, in collaboration with translator Elisabeth Hauptmann and set designer Caspar Neher. It was adapted from an 18th-century English ballad opera, John Gay's The Beggar's Opera, and offers a Marxist critique...

      as Jenny
    • Millicent Martin
      Millicent Martin
      Millicent Mary Lillian Martin is an English actress, singer and comedienne.Martin was born in Romford, England. She made her Broadway debut opposite Julie Andrews in The Boy Friend in 1954...

       – Side by Side by Sondheim
      Side By Side By Sondheim
      Side by Side by Sondheim is a musical revue featuring the songs of Broadway and film composer Stephen Sondheim. Its title is derived from the song "Side by Side by Side" from Company.-History:...

      as various characters
    • Julia McKenzie
      Julia McKenzie
      Julia McKenzie is an English actress, singer, and theatre director. She is best-known for her performance in Fresh Fields, but to current television audiences, she is best known for her role as Miss Marple in Agatha Christie's Marple...

       – Side by Side by Sondheim
      Side By Side By Sondheim
      Side by Side by Sondheim is a musical revue featuring the songs of Broadway and film composer Stephen Sondheim. Its title is derived from the song "Side by Side by Side" from Company.-History:...

      as various characters

  • 1978: Nell Carter
    Nell Carter
    Nell Carter was an American singer, and film, stage, and television actress. She won a Tony Award for her performance in the Broadway musical Ain't Misbehavin, as well as an Emmy Award for her reprisal of the role on television...

     – Ain't Misbehavin' as Nell
    • Imogene Coca
      Imogene Coca
      Imogene Fernandez de Coca was an American comic actress best known for her role opposite Sid Caesar on Your Show of Shows....

       – On the Twentieth Century
      On the Twentieth Century
      On the Twentieth Century is a musical with book and lyrics by Betty Comden and Adolph Green and music by Cy Coleman. Part operetta, part farce, part screwball comedy, the story involves the behind-the-scenes relationship of a temperamental actress and a director.-Background:Comden and Green based...

      as Letitia Primrose
    • Ann Reinking
      Ann Reinking
      Ann Reinking is an American actress, dancer, and choreographer. She has worked extensively in musical theatre, both as a dancer and choreographer, as well as appearing in film.-Biography:...

       – Dancin'
      Dancin'
      Dancin' is a musical revue first produced in 1978, directed and choreographed by Bob Fosse, who won a Tony Award for the choreography. The show is a tribute to the art of dance, and the music is a collection of mostly American songs, many with a dance theme from a wide variety of styles, from...

      as various characters
    • Charlaine Woodard – Ain't Misbehavin' as various characters

  • 1979: Carlin Glynn – The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas
    The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas
    The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas is a musical with a book by Texas author Larry L. King and Peter Masterson and music and lyrics by Carol Hall...

    as Mona Stangley
    • Joan Ellis – The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas
      The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas
      The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas is a musical with a book by Texas author Larry L. King and Peter Masterson and music and lyrics by Carol Hall...

      as Joan Ellis
    • Millicent Martin
      Millicent Martin
      Millicent Mary Lillian Martin is an English actress, singer and comedienne.Martin was born in Romford, England. She made her Broadway debut opposite Julie Andrews in The Boy Friend in 1954...

       – King of Hearts
      King of Hearts (musical)
      King of Hearts is a 1978 musical with a book by Joseph Stein, lyrics by Jacob Brackman, and music by Peter Link, orchestrated by Bill Brohn. It is based on the 1966 anti-war cult film of the same name....

      as Madeleine
    • Maxine Sullivan
      Maxine Sullivan
      Maxine Sullivan , born Marietta Williams, was an American blues and jazz singer.She was born in Homestead, Pennsylvania, and married jazz musician John Kirby in 1938 , and stride pianist Cliff Jackson in 1956...

       – My Old Friends as Mrs. Cooper


1980s

  • 1980: Priscilla Lopez
    Priscilla Lopez
    Priscilla Lopez is an American singer, dancer, and actress.-Early life:Lopez was born in the Bronx, New York to Francisco Lopez, a hotel banquet foreman and Laura , who were moved to New York from their native Puerto Rico...

     – A Day in Hollywood/A Night in the Ukraine as Gino
    • Debbie Allen
      Debbie Allen
      Deborrah Kaye “Debbie” Allen is an American actress, dancer, choreographer, television director, television producer, and a member of the President's Committee on the Arts and Humanities...

       – West Side Story as Anita
    • Glenn Close
      Glenn Close
      Glenn Close is an American actress and singer of theatre and film, known for her roles as a femme fatale Glenn Close (born March 19, 1947) is an American actress and singer of theatre and film, known for her roles as a femme fatale Glenn Close (born March 19, 1947) is an American actress and...

       – Barnum
      Barnum (musical)
      Barnum is a musical with a book by Mark Bramble, lyrics by Michael Stewart, and music by Cy Coleman. It is based on the life of showman P. T. Barnum, covering the period from 1835 through 1880 in America and major cities of the world where Barnum took his performing companies. The production...

      as Charity Barnum
    • Josie de Guzman
      Josie de Guzman
      Josie de Guzman is an American actress of Puerto Rican descent best known for work in the theatre. After studying at the Boston Conservatory of Music, Guzman made her Broadway debut in 1978 as Lidia in the original production of Elizabeth Swados's Runaways...

       – West Side Story as Maria

  • 1981: Marilyn Cooper
    Marilyn Cooper
    Marilyn Cooper was an American actress, known primarily for her work on the Broadway stage.-Biography:Born in New York City, Cooper made her Broadway debut in 1956 in the chorus of Mr. Wonderful...

     – Woman of the Year
    Woman of the Year
    Woman of the Year is a romantic comedy film. The movie is about an emancipated woman, chosen "Woman of the Year", and her colleague-turned-husband and their efforts to negotiate a path to marital bliss....

    as Jan Donovan
    • Phyllis Hyman
      Phyllis Hyman
      Phyllis Linda Hyman was an American soul singer and actress.-Early years:Phyllis Hyman was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and grew up in the St. Clair Village, the South Hills section of Pittsburgh...

       – Sophisticated Ladies
      Sophisticated Ladies
      Sophisticated Ladies is a musical revue based on the music of Duke Ellington.After fifteen previews, the Broadway production, conceived by Donald McKayle, directed by Michael Smuin, and choreographed by McKayle, Smuin, Henry LeTang, Bruce Heath, and Mercedes Ellington, opened on March 1, 1981 at...

      as various characters
    • Wanda Richert – 42nd Street
      42nd Street (musical)
      42nd Street is a musical with a book by Michael Stewart and Mark Bramble, lyrics by Al Dubin, and music by Harry Warren. The 1980 Broadway production, directed by an ailing Gower Champion and orchestrated by Philip J. Lang, won the Tony Award for Best Musical and became a long-running hit...

      as Peggy Sawyer
    • Lynne Thigpen
      Lynne Thigpen
      Cherlynne Theresa “Lynne” Thigpen was an American stage and television actress, most famous as "The Chief" in the various Carmen Sandiego television series.-Early life:...

       – Tintypes
      Tintypes
      Tintypes is a musical revue conceived by Mary Kyte with Mel Marvin and Gary Pearle.With its time frame set between the turn of the 20th century and the onset of World War I, this chamber piece with a cast of five provides a musical history lesson focusing on an exciting and tumultuous period in...

      as various characters

  • 1982: Liliane Montevecchi
    Liliane Montevecchi
    Liliane Montevecchi is a French actress, dancer, and singer.Montevecchi began her career as a prima ballerina in Roland Petit's dance company...

     – Nine
    Nine (musical)
    Nine is a musical with a book by Arthur Kopit, music and lyrics by Maury Yeston. The story is based on Federico Fellini's semi-autobiographical film 8½...

    as Lilaine La Fleur
    • Laurie Beechman
      Laurie Beechman
      Laurie Hope Beechman was an American singer. As a performer, she was known for her Broadway performances in Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, Cats, and Les Misérables...

       – Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat
      Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat
      Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat is an Andrew Lloyd Webber musical with lyrics by Tim Rice. The story is based on the "coat of many colors" story of Joseph from the Hebrew Bible's Book of Genesis. This was the first Lloyd Webber and Rice musical to be performed publicly...

      as Narrator
    • Karen Akers
      Karen Akers
      Karen Akers is an American actress and singer, who has appeared on Broadway, cabaret and film.-Background:She was born Karen Orth-Pallavicini in New York City on October 13, 1945. Her ancestry was a mixture of European stock: her immigrant father, Heinrick C...

       – Nine
      Nine (musical)
      Nine is a musical with a book by Arthur Kopit, music and lyrics by Maury Yeston. The story is based on Federico Fellini's semi-autobiographical film 8½...

      as Luisa Contini
    • Anita Morris
      Anita Morris
      -Career:Among many roles, Morris's most prominent film role was as Carol Dodsworth, the mistress to Danny DeVito, in Ruthless People and for her sensual performance as Carla in the musical Nine opposite Raul Julia. While nominated for a Best Featured Actress Tony Award as Carla, she lost to Liliane...

       – Nine
      Nine (musical)
      Nine is a musical with a book by Arthur Kopit, music and lyrics by Maury Yeston. The story is based on Federico Fellini's semi-autobiographical film 8½...

      as Carla Albanese

  • 1983: Betty Buckley
    Betty Buckley
    Betty Lynn Buckley is an American theater, film and television actress and singer. She is a Tony Award winner and Grammy Award nominee.-Early life:...

     – Cats
    Cats (musical)
    Cats is a musical composed by Andrew Lloyd Webber, based on Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats by T. S. Eliot...

    as Grizabella
    • Christine Andreas
      Christine Andreas
      -Biography:BroadwayAndreas was born in Camden, New Jersey. She made her Broadway debut in a 1975 revival of Angel Street. The following year she was cast as Eliza Doolittle in the 20th Anniversary production of My Fair Lady, for which she received the Theatre World Award...

       – On Your Toes
      On Your Toes
      On Your Toes is a musical with a book by Richard Rodgers, George Abbott, and Lorenz Hart, music by Rodgers, and lyrics by Hart. It was adapted into a film in 1939....

      as Frankie Fayne
    • Karla Burns
      Karla Burns
      Karla Burns is an American operatic mezzo-soprano and actress who has performed nationally and internationally in opera houses, theatres, and on television...

       – Show Boat
      Show Boat
      Show Boat is a musical in two acts with music by Jerome Kern and book and lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II. It was originally produced in New York in 1927 and in London in 1928, and was based on the 1926 novel of the same name by Edna Ferber. The plot chronicles the lives of those living and working...

      as Queenie
    • Denny Dillon
      Denny Dillon
      Denise "Denny" Dillon is an American comedian and former cast member of Saturday Night Live. At 4'11" , Dillon is the shortest cast member in the show's history...

       – My One and Only
      My One and Only
      My One and Only is a musical with a book by Peter Stone and Timothy S. Mayer and music and lyrics by George and Ira Gershwin.Written to incorporate classic Gershwin tunes from Funny Face and other popular shows into one evening of entertainment, the plot, set in 1927 America, revolves around Capt...

      as Mickey

  • 1984: Lila Kedrova
    Lila Kedrova
    Lila Kedrova was a Russian-born French actress.-Biography:Kedrova claimed to have been born in 1918, in Saint Petersburg, Russia. Her parents were Russian opera singers. Lila Kedrova's brother was Nikolay Kedrov, Jr...

     – Zorba
    Zorba the Greek (musical)
    Zorba is a musical with a book by Joseph Stein, lyrics by Fred Ebb, and music by John Kander. Adapted from the 1952 novel Zorba the Greek by Nikos Kazantzakis and the subsequent 1964 film of the same name, it focuses on the friendship that evolves between Zorba and Nikos, a young American who has...

    as Madame Hortense
    • Martine Allard – The Tap Dance Kid
      The Tap Dance Kid
      The Tap Dance Kid is a musical based on the novel Nobody's Family is Going to Change by Louise Fitzhugh. It was written by Charles Blackwell with music by Henry Krieger and lyrics by Robert Lorick.-Productions:...

      as Emma
    • Liz Callaway
      Liz Callaway
      Liz Callaway is an American actress and singer, famous for providing the singing voices of many female characters in films, such as Anya in Anastasia, Odette in The Swan Princess, and Kiara in The Lion King II:Simba's Pride....

       – Baby
      Baby (musical)
      Baby is a musical with a book by Sybille Pearson, based on a story developed with Susan Yankowitz, music by David Shire, and lyrics by Richard Maltby, Jr.. It concerns the reactions of three couples each expecting a child. The musical first ran on Broadway from 1983 to 1984.-Synopsis:Three...

      as Lizzie Fields
    • Dana Ivey
      Dana Ivey
      Dana Robins Ivey is an American character actress, who has performed on Broadway and other stage roles, in film and on television.-Early life and family:Ivey was born in Atlanta, Georgia...

       – Sunday in the Park with George
      Sunday in the Park with George
      Sunday in the Park with George is a 1984 musical with music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim and book by James Lapine. The musical was inspired by the painting "A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte" by Georges Seurat...

      as Yvonne/Naomi Eisen


  • 1985: Leilani Jones
    Leilani Jones (actress)
    Leilani Jones is an American actress who first came to the world's attention in the original production of Little Shop of Horrors.-Biography:...

     – Grind
    Grind (musical)
    Grind is a musical with a book by Fay Kanin, music by Larry Grossman, and lyrics by Ellen Fitzhugh. Grind is a portrait of a largely African-American burlesque house in Chicago in the Thirties.The reviews were mixed at best...

    as Satin
    • Evalyn Baron – Quilters
      Quilters (musical)
      Quilters is a musical with a book by Molly Newman and Barbara Damashek, and lyrics and music by Barbara Damashek. It is about the lives of American pioneer women based on the book The Quilters:Women and Domestic Art by Patricia Cooper and Norma Bradley Allen. The show was originally developed and...

      as Daughter
    • Mary Beth Peil
      Mary Beth Peil
      Mary Beth Peil is an American actress and singer.-Early life:Born in Davenport, Iowa in 1940, Peil trained as an opera singer at Northwestern University under Lotte Lehmann. There she became a member of the Gamma Phi Beta sorority...

       – The King and I
      The King and I
      The King and I is a stage musical, the fifth by the team of Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II. The work is based on the 1944 novel Anna and the King of Siam by Margaret Landon and derives from the memoirs of Anna Leonowens, who became governess to the children of King Mongkut of Siam in...

      as Anna Leonowens
    • Lenka Peterson
      Lenka Peterson
      Lenka Peterson is an actress of stage, film and television.On Broadway, Peterson's roles included Ella in Sundown Beach , Maude in The Grass Harp , Kitty in The Time of Your Life , Sally and Mary in All the Way Home , Rose in Nuts , and Sarah in Quilters ,...

       – Quilters
      Quilters (musical)
      Quilters is a musical with a book by Molly Newman and Barbara Damashek, and lyrics and music by Barbara Damashek. It is about the lives of American pioneer women based on the book The Quilters:Women and Domestic Art by Patricia Cooper and Norma Bradley Allen. The show was originally developed and...

      as Sarah

  • 1986: Bebe Neuwirth
    Bebe Neuwirth
    Beatrice "Bebe" Neuwirth is an American actress, singer and dancer. She has worked in television and is known for her portrayal of Dr. Lilith Sternin, Dr. Frasier Crane's wife , on both the TV sitcom Cheers , and its spin-off Frasier...

     – Sweet Charity
    Sweet Charity
    Sweet Charity is a musical with music by Cy Coleman, lyrics by Dorothy Fields and book by Neil Simon. It was directed and choreographed for Broadway by Bob Fosse starring his wife and muse Gwen Verdon. It is based on Federico Fellini's screenplay for Nights of Cabiria...

    as Nickie
    • Patti Cohenour
      Patti Cohenour
      Patti Cohenour is an American actress and singer. She was most recently seen in the Broadway production of The Light in the Piazza as Signora Naccarelli...

       – The Mystery of Edwin Drood as Rosa Bud / Miss Deirdre Peregrine
    • Jana Schneider
      Jana Schneider
      Janet Ann Schneider is an American actress and photojournalist.Jana studied at the University of Wisconsin...

       – The Mystery of Edwin Drood as Helena Landless / Miss Janet Conover
    • Elisabeth Welch
      Elisabeth Welch
      thumb|right|200pxElisabeth Welch was an American born singer, actress, and entertainer whose career spanned seven decades, many years of which she was based in Britain....

       – Jerome Kern Goes to Hollywood as various characters

  • 1987: Frances Ruffelle
    Frances Ruffelle
    Frances Ruffelle is an English musical theatre actress and recording artist. Her mother is Sylvia Young, the founder of the famous theatre school at which Frances trained, and her daughter is recording artist Eliza Doolittle. Her younger sister is actress Alison Ruffelle...

     – Les Misérables
    Les Misérables (musical)
    Les Misérables , colloquially known as Les Mis or Les Miz , is a musical by Claude-Michel Schönberg, based on the novel of the same name by Victor Hugo....

    as Éponine
    • Jane Connell – Me and My Girl
      Me and My Girl
      Me and My Girl is a musical with book and lyrics by Douglas Furber and L. Arthur Rose and music by Noel Gay. It takes place in the late 1930s in Hampshire, Mayfair, and Lambeth....

      as Duchess Maria
    • Judy Kuhn
      Judy Kuhn
      -Life and career:Kuhn was born in New York City and grew up in Bethesda, Maryland. She attended Georgetown Day School in Washington, D.C.She entered Oberlin College in 1976. Although she was very interested in singing and theater, she began Oberlin in the College, not the Conservatory. After taking...

       – Les Misérables
      Les Misérables (musical)
      Les Misérables , colloquially known as Les Mis or Les Miz , is a musical by Claude-Michel Schönberg, based on the novel of the same name by Victor Hugo....

      as Cosette
    • Jane Summerhays
      Jane Summerhays
      Jane Summerhays is an American actress known for her work on stage, screen, and film. Her television credits include guest roles on One Life to Live, All My Children, Tales from the Darkside, Working It Out, The Cosby Mysteries, New York News, Law & Order, Sex and the City, and Ed...

       – Me and My Girl
      Me and My Girl
      Me and My Girl is a musical with book and lyrics by Douglas Furber and L. Arthur Rose and music by Noel Gay. It takes place in the late 1930s in Hampshire, Mayfair, and Lambeth....

      as Lady Jaqueline Carstone

  • 1988: Judy Kaye
    Judy Kaye
    Judy Kaye is an American singer and actress. She has appeared in stage musicals, plays, and operas. Kaye has been in long runs on Broadway in the musicals The Phantom of the Opera, Ragtime and Mamma Mia!-Biography:...

     – The Phantom of the Opera
    The Phantom of the Opera (1986 musical)
    The Phantom of the Opera is a musical by Andrew Lloyd Webber, based on the French novel Le Fantôme de l'Opéra by Gaston Leroux.The music was composed by Lloyd Webber, and most lyrics were written by Charles Hart, with additional lyrics by Richard Stilgoe. Alan Jay Lerner was an early collaborator,...

    as Carlotta Giudicelli
    • Leleti Khumalo
      Leleti Khumalo
      Leleti Khumalo is a Zulu South African actress who played the leading role in the movie Sarafina! alongside Whoopi Goldberg and who starred in the films Hotel Rwanda and Yesterday.-Early life and Sarafina!:...

       – Sarafina! as Sarafina
    • Alyson Reed
      Alyson Reed
      Alyson Reed is an American dancer and actress.Reed grew up in Anaheim, California and attended Anaheim High School, where she graduated in 1976. She was a varsity songleader for two years, and was ASB President as a senior. She began performing in high school, and one of her major roles was as...

       – Cabaret
      Cabaret (musical)
      Cabaret is a musical based on a book written by Christopher Isherwood, music by John Kander and lyrics by Fred Ebb. The 1966 Broadway production became a hit and spawned a 1972 film as well as numerous subsequent productions....

      as Sally Bowles
    • Regina Resnik
      Regina Resnik
      Regina Resnik is an American operatic singer.Regina Resnik, the American mezzo-soprano, started a dramatic career ten months after earning her B.A. in Music at Hunter College. The role was Lady Macbeth under Fritz Busch in December, 1942 with the New Opera Company. A few months later, she sang...

       – Cabaret
      Cabaret (musical)
      Cabaret is a musical based on a book written by Christopher Isherwood, music by John Kander and lyrics by Fred Ebb. The 1966 Broadway production became a hit and spawned a 1972 film as well as numerous subsequent productions....

      as Fraü Schneider

  • 1989: Debbie Shapiro
    Debbie Shapiro
    Debbie Shapiro Gravitte is an American actress and singer.Shapiro was born in Los Angeles, California, and went on to make her Broadway debut in the chorus of They're Playing Our Song in 1979...

     – Jerome Robbins' Broadway
    Jerome Robbins' Broadway
    Jerome Robbins' Broadway is an anthology comprising musical numbers from earlier shows that were either directed or choreographed by Jerome Robbins. Robbins won his fifth Tony Award for direction of the show....

    as various characters
    • Jane Lanier – Jerome Robbins' Broadway
      Jerome Robbins' Broadway
      Jerome Robbins' Broadway is an anthology comprising musical numbers from earlier shows that were either directed or choreographed by Jerome Robbins. Robbins won his fifth Tony Award for direction of the show....

      as various characters
    • Faith Prince
      Faith Prince
      Faith Prince is an American actress and singer known primarily for her work on Broadway. Prince has won the Tony Award as Best Actress in a Musical and received three Tony nominations.-Life and career:...

       – Jerome Robbins' Broadway
      Jerome Robbins' Broadway
      Jerome Robbins' Broadway is an anthology comprising musical numbers from earlier shows that were either directed or choreographed by Jerome Robbins. Robbins won his fifth Tony Award for direction of the show....

      as various characters
    • Julie Wilson
      Julie Wilson
      Julie Wilson is an American singer and actress.Born in Omaha, Nebraska and first finding a musical outlet with local musical group Hank's Hepcats, Wilson headed to New York City during World War II and found work in two of Manhattan's leading nightclubs, the Latin Quarter and the Copacabana...

       – Legs Diamond
      Legs Diamond (musical)
      Legs Diamond is a musical with a book by Harvey Fierstein and Charles Suppon based on the Warner Brothers film "The Rise and Fall of Legs Diamond"...

      as Flo


1990s

  • 1990: Randy Graff
    Randy Graff
    Randy Graff is an American actress. Graff has been in feature films such as Keys to Tulsa and Rent as well as being in television shows such as NBC's Law & Order a number of times. In addition to film and television, Graff has been in several Broadway shows...

     – City of Angels
    City of Angels (musical)
    City of Angels is a musical comedy with music by Cy Coleman, lyrics by David Zippel, and book by Larry Gelbart. The musical weaves together two plots, the "real" world of a writer trying to turn his book into a screenplay, and the "reel" world of the fictional film.-Productions:City of Angels...

    as Oolie/Donna
    • Jane Krakowski
      Jane Krakowski
      Jane Krakowski is an American actress and singer. She is most well known for her performance of Elaine Vassal on Ally McBeal, for which she was nominated for a Golden Globe Award, and for her current role as Jenna Maroney on the NBC sitcom 30 Rock, for which she has been nominated for three Emmy...

       – Grand Hotel
      Grand Hotel (musical)
      Grand Hotel is a musical with a book by Luther Davis and music and lyrics by Robert Wright and George Forrest, with additional lyrics and music by Maury Yeston....

      as Flaemmchen
    • Kathleen Rowe McAllen – Aspects of Love
      Aspects of Love
      Aspects of Love is a musical/chamber opera with a book and music by Andrew Lloyd Webber and lyrics by Don Black and Charles Hart. It is famous for the song "Love Changes Everything."...

      as Giulietta Trapani
    • Crista Moore – Gypsy as Louise

  • 1991: Daisy Eagan
    Daisy Eagan
    Daisy Eagan is an American actress.In 1991 she won the Tony Award for Best Performance by a Featured Actress in a Musical for playing Mary Lennox in The Secret Garden...

     – The Secret Garden
    The Secret Garden (musical)
    The Secret Garden is a musical based on the 1911 novel of the same name by Frances Hodgson Burnett. The musical's book and lyrics are by Marsha Norman, with music by Lucy Simon...

    as Mary Lennox
    • Alison Fraser
      Alison Fraser
      Alison Fraser is an American actress and singer who has appeared in concert at such venues as Carnegie Hall, The White House, Town Hall, The Brooklyn Botanic Garden, The Tisch Center for the Arts, The Folger Shakespeare Library, The Wilma, The Emelin, Joe's Pub and Symphony space.Fraser is a two...

       – The Secret Garden
      The Secret Garden (musical)
      The Secret Garden is a musical based on the 1911 novel of the same name by Frances Hodgson Burnett. The musical's book and lyrics are by Marsha Norman, with music by Lucy Simon...

      as Martha
    • Cady Huffman
      Cady Huffman
      Catherine Elizabeth “Cady” Huffman is a Tony Award-winning American actress.-Early life:Huffman was born in Santa Barbara, California to Lorayne, a pre-school assistant director turned realtor, and Clifford Huffman, an attorney...

       – The Will Rogers Follies as Ziegfield's favorite
    • LaChanze
      LaChanze
      LaChanze is an American actress, singer, and dancer. She won the Tony Award for Best Performance by a Leading Actress in a Musical in 2006 for her role in The Color Purple....

       – Once on This Island
      Once On This Island
      Once on This Island is a one-act musical with a book and lyrics by Lynn Ahrens and music by Stephen Flaherty. Based on the novel My Love, My Love by Rosa Guy, set in the French Antilles in the Caribbean Sea...

      as Ti Moune

  • 1992: Tonya Pinkins
    Tonya Pinkins
    Tonya Pinkins is an American actress and author known for her portrayal of Livia Frye on the soap opera All My Children and for her roles on Broadway, for which she won a Tony Award.-Biography:...

     – Jelly's Last Jam
    Jelly's Last Jam
    Jelly's Last Jam is a musical with a book by George C. Wolfe, lyrics by Susan Birkenhead, and music by Jelly Roll Morton and Luther Henderson...

    as Sweet Anita
    • Liz Larsen
      Liz Larsen
      Liz Larsen in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania is an American actress. She is best known for playing Jessica Reed on Law & Order....

       – The Most Happy Fella
      The Most Happy Fella
      The Most Happy Fella is a 1956 musical with a book, music, and lyrics by Frank Loesser. The story, about a romance between an older man and younger woman, is based on the play They Knew What They Wanted by Sidney Howard...

      as Cleo
    • Vivian Reed
      Vivian Reed (actress)
      Vivian Reed is an African-American actress, singer, and dancer.BIOGRAPHYVivian Reed is a multi-award winner with two TONY nominations, Drama Desk Award, Theatre world Award, Outer Critics Circle Award, Dance Education of America Award, NAACP Award and several others...

       – The High Rollers Social and Pleasure Club as Irene
    • Barbara Walsh
      Barbara Walsh
      Barbara Walsh is an American musical theatre actress who has appeared in several prominent Broadway productions. Walsh is known for her Drama Desk Award winning and Tony nominated role as Trina in the Broadway production of Falsettos....

       – Falsettos
      Falsettos
      Falsettos is a musical with a book by James Lapine and William Finn and music and lyrics by Finn, comprising March of the Falsettos and Falsettoland, the last two in a trio of one-act off-Broadway plays focusing on Marvin, his ex-wife Trina, his psychiatrist Mendel, his son Jason, and his gay...

      as Trina

  • 1993: Andrea Martin
    Andrea Martin
    Andrea Louise Martin is an American and Canadian actress and comedienne. She has appeared in films such as My Big Fat Greek Wedding, on stage in productions such as My Favorite Year, Fiddler on the Roof and Candide, and in the television series, SCTV.-Personal life:Martin, the oldest of three...

     – My Favorite Year
    My Favorite Year (musical)
    My Favorite Year is a musical with a book by Joseph Dougherty, music by Stephen Flaherty, and lyrics by Lynn Ahrens. It is based on the film of the same name.-Production history:...

    as Alice Miller
    • Jan Graveson
      Jan Graveson
      Janice Margaret "Jan" Graveson is a British actress and singer.-Television:Born in Easington, County Durham.Childhood: Horden & Peterlee, County Durham...

       – Blood Brothers as Linda
    • Lainie Kazan
      Lainie Kazan
      Lainie Kazan is an American actress and singer.-Personal life:Kazan was born Lanie Levine in Brooklyn, New York City, the daughter of a Russian Ashkenazi Jewish father who worked as a bookie and a Turkish Sephardic Jewish mother, Carole, whom Kazan has described as "neurotic, fragile and...

       – My Favorite Year
      My Favorite Year (musical)
      My Favorite Year is a musical with a book by Joseph Dougherty, music by Stephen Flaherty, and lyrics by Lynn Ahrens. It is based on the film of the same name.-Production history:...

      as Belle May Steinberg Carroca
    • Marcia Mitzman – Tommy as Mrs. Walker

  • 1994: Audra McDonald
    Audra McDonald
    Audra Ann McDonald is an American actress and singer. She currently stars in the ABC television drama Private Practice as Dr. Naomi Bennett. She has appeared on the stage in both musicals and dramas, such as Ragtime and A Raisin in the Sun...

     – Carousel
    Carousel (musical)
    Carousel is the second stage musical by the team of Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II . The work premiered in 1945 and was adapted from Ferenc Molnár's 1909 play Liliom, transplanting its Budapest setting to the Maine coastline...

    as Carrie Pipperidge
    • Marcia Lewis
      Marcia Lewis
      Marcia Lewis was an American character actress and singer. She has been nominated twice for the Tony Award as Best Featured Actress in a Musical and twice for the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Featured Actress in a Musical .-Biography:Lewis was born in Melrose, Massachusetts and raised in...

       – Grease
      Grease (musical)
      Grease is a 1971 musical by Jim Jacobs and Warren Casey. The musical is named for the 1950s United States working-class youth subculture known as the greasers. The musical, set in 1959 at fictional Rydell High School , follows ten working-class teenagers as they navigate the complexities of love,...

      as Miss Lynch
    • Sally Mayes
      Sally Mayes
      -Biography:Born in Livingston, Texas, Mayes began her career as a rock and jazz singer in Houston. She made her Broadway debut in April 1989 as Winona Shook in Cy Coleman's Welcome to the Club. For her performance she won a Theatre World Award. This was followed by her appearance in the original...

       – She Loves Me
      She Loves Me
      She Loves Me is a musical with a book by Joe Masteroff, lyrics by Sheldon Harnick, and music by Jerry Bock.The musical is the fifth adaptation of the play Parfumerie by Hungarian playwright Miklos Laszlo, following the 1940 James Stewart-Margaret Sullavan film The Shop around the Corner and the...

      as Ilona Ritter
    • Marin Mazzie
      Marin Mazzie
      Marin Joy Mazzie is an American actress and singer known for her work in musical theater. She was nominated for the Tony Award, Drama Desk Award and Olivier Award for her role as Lilli/Katharine in Kiss Me, Kate, and won the Outer Critics Circle Award...

       – Passion
      Passion (musical)
      Passion is a musical adapted from Ettore Scola's film Passione d'Amore . The book is by James Lapine, with music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim. Central subjects include obsession, beauty, power, manipulation, passion, illness, and love...

      as Clara


  • 1995: Gretha Boston
    Gretha Boston
    Gretha Boston is an American actress. Boston made her Broadway debut as "Queenie" in the 1994 revival of Show Boat, directed by Hal Prince...

     – Show Boat
    Show Boat
    Show Boat is a musical in two acts with music by Jerome Kern and book and lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II. It was originally produced in New York in 1927 and in London in 1928, and was based on the 1926 novel of the same name by Edna Ferber. The plot chronicles the lives of those living and working...

    as Queenie
    • Brenda Braxton – Smokey Joe's Cafe
      Smokey Joe's Cafe
      Smokey Joe's Cafe is a musical revue showcasing 39 pop standards, including rock and roll, rhythm and blues songs written by songwriters Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller...

      as various characters
    • B.J. Crosby – Smokey Joe's Cafe
      Smokey Joe's Cafe
      Smokey Joe's Cafe is a musical revue showcasing 39 pop standards, including rock and roll, rhythm and blues songs written by songwriters Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller...

      as various characters
    • DeLee Lively – Smokey Joe's Cafe
      Smokey Joe's Cafe
      Smokey Joe's Cafe is a musical revue showcasing 39 pop standards, including rock and roll, rhythm and blues songs written by songwriters Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller...

      as various characters

  • 1996: Ann Duquesnay
    Ann Duquesnay
    Ann Duquesnay is an American musical theatre actress, composer and lyricist best known for Bring in 'Da Noise, Bring in 'Da Funk, which earned her a Tony Award.-Biography:...

     – Bring in 'da Noise/Bring in 'da Funk
    Bring in 'da Noise/Bring in 'da Funk
    Bring in 'da Noise, Bring in 'da Funk is a musical that debuted Off-Broadway at the New York Shakespeare Festival/Public Theater in 1995 and moved to Broadway in 1996. The show was conceived and directed by George C. Wolfe, and featured music by Daryl Waters, Zane Mark and Ann Duquesnay; lyrics by...

    as 'Da Singer/Chanteuse
    • Joohee Choi – The King and I
      The King and I
      The King and I is a stage musical, the fifth by the team of Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II. The work is based on the 1944 novel Anna and the King of Siam by Margaret Landon and derives from the memoirs of Anna Leonowens, who became governess to the children of King Mongkut of Siam in...

      as Tuptim
    • Veanne Cox
      Veanne Cox
      Veanne Cox is an American stage and screen actress and former ballet dancer.Cox was born in Norfolk, Virginia. She studied ballet at the Washington School of Ballet, acting at the Studio Theatre's Conservatory in Washington, D.C., and voice at Catholic University.Her Broadway debut was in the...

       – Company
      Company (musical)
      Company is a musical with a book by George Furth and music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim. The original production was nominated for a record-setting fourteen Tony Awards and won six....

      as Amy
    • Idina Menzel
      Idina Menzel
      Idina Kim Menzel is an American actress, singer and songwriter. She is widely known for originating the roles of Maureen in Rent and Elphaba in Wicked.-Early life:...

       – Rent
      Rent (musical)
      Rent is a rock musical with music and lyrics by Jonathan Larson based on Giacomo Puccini's opera La bohème...

      as Maureen Johnson

  • 1997: Lillias White
    Lillias White
    Lillias White is an American singer and actress.The Brooklyn, New York native made her Broadway debut in Barnum in 1981. She understudied the role of Effie in the original 1981 production of Dreamgirls and played the part in the 1987 revival...

     – The Life
    The Life (musical)
    The Life is a musical with a book by David Newman, Ira Gasman and Cy Coleman, music by Coleman, and lyrics by Gasman.Based on an original idea by Gasman, the show explores the underbelly of Times Square's 42nd Street, inhabited by pimps and prostitutes, druggies and dealers, and runaways and street...

    as Sonja
    • Marcia Lewis
      Marcia Lewis
      Marcia Lewis was an American character actress and singer. She has been nominated twice for the Tony Award as Best Featured Actress in a Musical and twice for the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Featured Actress in a Musical .-Biography:Lewis was born in Melrose, Massachusetts and raised in...

       – Chicago
      Chicago (musical)
      Chicago is a musical set in Prohibition-era Chicago. The music is by John Kander with lyrics by Fred Ebb and a book by Ebb and Bob Fosse. The story is a satire on corruption in the administration of criminal justice and the concept of the "celebrity criminal"...

      as Matron Mamma Morton
    • Andrea Martin
      Andrea Martin
      Andrea Louise Martin is an American and Canadian actress and comedienne. She has appeared in films such as My Big Fat Greek Wedding, on stage in productions such as My Favorite Year, Fiddler on the Roof and Candide, and in the television series, SCTV.-Personal life:Martin, the oldest of three...

       – Candide
      Candide (operetta)
      Candide is an operetta with music composed by Leonard Bernstein, based on the novella of the same name by Voltaire. The operetta was first performed in 1956 with a libretto by Lillian Hellman; but since 1974 it has been generally performed with a book by Hugh Wheeler which is more faithful to...

      as Old Lady
    • Debra Monk
      Debra Monk
      Debra Monk is an American actress, singer, and writer.Monk was born in Middletown, Ohio. She was voted "best personality" by the graduating class at Wheaton High School in Silver Spring, Maryland. She graduated from Frostburg State University in 1963...

       – Steel Pier
      Steel Pier
      Steel Pier is a amusement pier in Atlantic City, New Jersey, located opposite The Boardwalk from Trump Taj Mahal.The pier was owned by Trump Entertainment Resorts until 2011, when it was sold to the Catanoso Family under the "Steel Pier Associates, LLC" name. The Catanosos previously leased the...

      as Shelby Stevens

  • 1998: Audra McDonald
    Audra McDonald
    Audra Ann McDonald is an American actress and singer. She currently stars in the ABC television drama Private Practice as Dr. Naomi Bennett. She has appeared on the stage in both musicals and dramas, such as Ragtime and A Raisin in the Sun...

     – Ragtime
    Ragtime (musical)
    Ragtime is a musical with a book by Terrence McNally, lyrics by Lynn Ahrens, and music by Stephen Flaherty.Based on the 1975 novel by E. L. Doctorow, Ragtime tells the story of three groups in America, represented by Coalhouse Walker Jr., a Harlem musician; Mother, the matriarch of a WASP family in...

    as Sarah
    • Anna Kendrick
      Anna Kendrick
      Anna Kendrick is an American film and stage actress best known for the role of Natalie Keener in the 2009 film Up in the Air. Her other work includes the films Camp , Rocket Science , Scott Pilgrim vs. the World , 50/50 , and the Broadway musical High Society...

       – High Society
      High Society (musical)
      High Society is a musical with a book by Arthur Kopit and music and lyrics by Cole Porter.Based on the Philip Barry play The Philadelphia Story and the 1956 musical screen adaptation with Porter's songs, High Society, the plot centers on pretentious Long Island socialite Tracy Lord, who is planning...

      as Dinah
    • Tsidii Le Loka
      Tsidii Le Loka
      Tsidii Le Loka is an actress, vocalist, and composer originally from South Africa and The Kingdom of Lesotho. She is best known for creating the role of Rafiki in the original Broadway production of Disney's stage musical, The Lion King.-Theatre:...

       – The Lion King
      The Lion King (musical)
      The Lion King is a musical based on the 1994 Disney animated film of the same name with music by Elton John and lyrics by Tim Rice along with the musical score created by Hans Zimmer with choral arrangements by Lebo M. Directed by Julie Taymor, the musical features actors in animal costumes as well...

      as Rafiki
    • Mary Louise Wilson
      Mary Louise Wilson
      Mary Louise Wilson is an American stage, film and television actress.-Stage:Broadway* Hot Spot — 1963 as Sue Ann* Flora, The Red Menace — 1965 as Comrade Ada* Lovers and Other Strangers — 1968 as Bernice...

       – Cabaret
      Cabaret (musical)
      Cabaret is a musical based on a book written by Christopher Isherwood, music by John Kander and lyrics by Fred Ebb. The 1966 Broadway production became a hit and spawned a 1972 film as well as numerous subsequent productions....

      as Fraulein Schneider

  • 1999: Kristin Chenoweth
    Kristin Chenoweth
    Kristin Chenoweth is an American singer and actress, with credits in musical theatre, film and television. She is best known on Broadway for her performance as Sally Brown in You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown , for which she won a Tony Award, and for originating the role of Glinda in the musical...

     – You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown
    You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown
    You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown is a 1967 musical comedy with music and lyrics by Clark Gesner, based on the characters created by cartoonist Charles M. Schulz in his comic strip Peanuts...

    as Sally Brown
    • Gretha Boston
      Gretha Boston
      Gretha Boston is an American actress. Boston made her Broadway debut as "Queenie" in the 1994 revival of Show Boat, directed by Hal Prince...

       – It Ain't Nothin' But the Blues
      It Ain't Nothin' But the Blues
      It Ain't Nothin' But the Blues is a musical revue written by Charles Bevel, Lita Gaithers, Randal Myler, Ron Taylor, and Dan Wheetman. It was originally produced at The Denver Center for the Performing Arts, and later presented by the Crossroads Theatre, in association with San Diego Repertory...

      as various characters
    • Valarie Pettiford
      Valarie Pettiford
      Valarie Pettiford is an American stage and television actress, dancer, and jazz singer. She received a Tony nomination for her role in the broadway production Fosse. She is also known for her role as "Big Dee Dee" Thorne on the UPN sitcom Half & Half.-Stage:Pettiford began her career as a dancer...

       – Fosse
      Fosse
      Fosse is a three-act musical revue showcasing the choreography of Bob Fosse. After 21 previews, the original Broadway production, conceived and directed by Richard Maltby, Jr...

      as various characters
    • Mary Testa
      Mary Testa
      Mary Testa is an American stage actress. She is a two-time Tony Award nominee, for performances in revivals of Leonard Bernstein's On the Town and 42nd Street ....

       – On the Town as Madame Maude P. Dilly


2000s

  • 2000: Karen Ziemba
    Karen Ziemba
    Karen Ziemba is an American actress, singer and dancer, best known for her work in musical theatre.-Biography:Ziemba was born in St. Joseph, Michigan, and went on to attend the University of Akron , where she studied dance and joined the Ohio Ballet in her sophomore year.Her Broadway debut was in...

     – Contact
    Contact (musical)
    Contact: The Musical is a musical "dance play" that was developed by Susan Stroman and John Weidman, with its "book" by Weidman and both choreography and direction by Stroman. It ran both off-Broadway and on Broadway in 1999 - 2000. It consists of three separate one-act dance...

    as Wife
    • Laura Benanti
      Laura Benanti
      Laura Benanti is an American actress of television, film and Broadway theatre noted for her award winning performance as Louise in the 2008 production of Gypsy.-Early years:...

       – Swing!
      Swing!
      Swing! is a musical conceived by Paul Kelly with music by various artists. It celebrates the music of the Swing era of jazz , including many well-known tunes by artists like Duke Ellington, William "Count" Basie, Benny Goodman and others...

      as various characters
    • Ann Hampton Callaway
      Ann Hampton Callaway
      Ann Hampton Callaway is a multiplatinum-selling singer, composer, lyricist, pianist, and actress. She is best known for writing and singing the theme to the TV series The Nanny, writing songs for Barbra Streisand and starring in the Broadway musical Swing!.-Career:Callaway was described by the New...

       – Swing!
      Swing!
      Swing! is a musical conceived by Paul Kelly with music by various artists. It celebrates the music of the Swing era of jazz , including many well-known tunes by artists like Duke Ellington, William "Count" Basie, Benny Goodman and others...

      as various characters
    • Eartha Kitt
      Eartha Kitt
      Eartha Mae Kitt was an American singer, actress, and cabaret star. She was perhaps best known for her highly distinctive singing style and her 1953 hit recordings of "C'est Si Bon" and the enduring Christmas novelty smash "Santa Baby." Orson Welles once called her the "most exciting woman in the...

       – The Wild Party
      The Wild Party (LaChiusa musical)
      The Wild Party is a musical with a book by Michael John LaChiusa and George C. Wolfe and music and lyrics by LaChiusa. It is based on the 1928 Joseph Moncure March narrative poem of the same name...

      as Dolores
    • Deborah Yates – Contact
      Contact (musical)
      Contact: The Musical is a musical "dance play" that was developed by Susan Stroman and John Weidman, with its "book" by Weidman and both choreography and direction by Stroman. It ran both off-Broadway and on Broadway in 1999 - 2000. It consists of three separate one-act dance...

      as Girl in a Yellow Dress

  • 2001: Cady Huffman
    Cady Huffman
    Catherine Elizabeth “Cady” Huffman is a Tony Award-winning American actress.-Early life:Huffman was born in Santa Barbara, California to Lorayne, a pre-school assistant director turned realtor, and Clifford Huffman, an attorney...

     – The Producers as Ulla
    • Polly Bergen
      Polly Bergen
      Polly Bergen is an American actress, singer, and entrepreneur.-Career:Bergen appeared in many film roles, most notably in the original Cape Fear opposite Gregory Peck and Robert Mitchum...

       – Follies
      Follies
      Follies is a musical with music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim and a book by James Goldman. The story concerns a reunion in a crumbling Broadway theatre, scheduled for demolition, of the past performers of the "Weismann's Follies," a musical revue , that played in that theatre between the World Wars...

      as Carlotta
    • Kathleen Freeman
      Kathleen Freeman
      Kathleen Freeman was an American film, television, and stage actress. In a career that spanned more than 50 years, she portrayed tart maids, secretaries, teachers, busybodies, nurses, and battle-axe neighbors, almost invariably to comic effect.-Early life:Freeman was born in Chicago, Illinois...

       – The Full Monty
      The Full Monty (musical)
      The Full Monty is a musical with a book by Terrence McNally and score by David Yazbek.In this Americanized musical stage version adapted from the 1997 British film of the same name, six unemployed Buffalo steelworkers, low on both cash and prospects, decide to present a strip act at a local club...

      as Jeannette Burmeister
    • Kate Levering
      Kate Levering
      Kate Levering is an American actress and dancer. She was born in Sacramento, California.Levering attended El Camino Fundamental High School, where she took part in school musicals and dance classes before graduating in 1997 and leaving for New York City to pursue a career on Broadway. In 2001 she...

       – 42nd Street
      42nd Street (musical)
      42nd Street is a musical with a book by Michael Stewart and Mark Bramble, lyrics by Al Dubin, and music by Harry Warren. The 1980 Broadway production, directed by an ailing Gower Champion and orchestrated by Philip J. Lang, won the Tony Award for Best Musical and became a long-running hit...

      as Peggy
    • Mary Testa
      Mary Testa
      Mary Testa is an American stage actress. She is a two-time Tony Award nominee, for performances in revivals of Leonard Bernstein's On the Town and 42nd Street ....

       – 42nd Street
      42nd Street (musical)
      42nd Street is a musical with a book by Michael Stewart and Mark Bramble, lyrics by Al Dubin, and music by Harry Warren. The 1980 Broadway production, directed by an ailing Gower Champion and orchestrated by Philip J. Lang, won the Tony Award for Best Musical and became a long-running hit...

      as Maggie Jones

  • 2002: Harriet Sansom Harris
    Harriet Sansom Harris
    Harriet Sansom Harris , often credited as "Harriet Harris" is an American actress best known for her portrayals of Bebe Glazer on Frasier and Felicia Tilman on Desperate Housewives. She won a Tony Award in 2002 as a Featured Actress in a Musical for playing the evil white slaver Mrs. Meers in...

     – Thoroughly Modern Millie
    Thoroughly Modern Millie (musical)
    Thoroughly Modern Millie is a musical with music by Jeanine Tesori, lyrics by Dick Scanlan, and a book by Richard Morris and Scanlan. Based on the 1967 film of the same name, Thoroughly Modern Millie tells the story of a small-town girl, Millie Dillmount, who comes to New York City to marry for...

    as Mrs. Meers
    • Andrea Martin
      Andrea Martin
      Andrea Louise Martin is an American and Canadian actress and comedienne. She has appeared in films such as My Big Fat Greek Wedding, on stage in productions such as My Favorite Year, Fiddler on the Roof and Candide, and in the television series, SCTV.-Personal life:Martin, the oldest of three...

       – Oklahoma!
      Oklahoma!
      Oklahoma! is the first musical written by composer Richard Rodgers and librettist Oscar Hammerstein II. The musical is based on Lynn Riggs' 1931 play, Green Grow the Lilacs. Set in Oklahoma Territory outside the town of Claremore in 1906, it tells the story of cowboy Curly McLain and his romance...

      as Aunt Eller
    • Judy Kaye
      Judy Kaye
      Judy Kaye is an American singer and actress. She has appeared in stage musicals, plays, and operas. Kaye has been in long runs on Broadway in the musicals The Phantom of the Opera, Ragtime and Mamma Mia!-Biography:...

       – Mamma Mia!
      Mamma Mia!
      Mamma Mia! is a stage musical written by British playwright Catherine Johnson, based on the songs of ABBA, composed by Benny Andersson and Björn Ulvaeus, former members of the band. Although the title of the musical is taken from the group's 1975 chart-topper "Mamma Mia", the plot is fictional, not...

      as Rosie Mulligan
    • Laura Benanti
      Laura Benanti
      Laura Benanti is an American actress of television, film and Broadway theatre noted for her award winning performance as Louise in the 2008 production of Gypsy.-Early years:...

       – Into the Woods
      Into the Woods
      Into the Woods is a musical with music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim and book by James Lapine. It debuted in San Diego at the Old Globe Theatre in 1986, and premiered on Broadway in 1987. Bernadette Peters' performance as the Witch and Joanna Gleason's portrayal of the Baker's Wife brought acclaim...

      as Cinderella
    • Spencer Kayden
      Spencer Kayden
      Spencer Kayden is an American actress and writer. Kayden is most notable for playing Little Sally in the popular Broadway musical Urinetown and for her membership in the recurring cast of comedians on sketch comedy series MADtv.-Biography:...

       – Urinetown
      Urinetown
      Urinetown: The Musical is a satirical comedy musical, with music by Mark Hollmann, lyrics by Hollmann and Greg Kotis, and book by Kotis. It satirizes the legal system, capitalism, social irresponsibility, populism, bureaucracy, corporate mismanagement, and municipal politics...

      as Little Sally

  • 2003: Jane Krakowski
    Jane Krakowski
    Jane Krakowski is an American actress and singer. She is most well known for her performance of Elaine Vassal on Ally McBeal, for which she was nominated for a Golden Globe Award, and for her current role as Jenna Maroney on the NBC sitcom 30 Rock, for which she has been nominated for three Emmy...

     – Nine
    Nine (musical)
    Nine is a musical with a book by Arthur Kopit, music and lyrics by Maury Yeston. The story is based on Federico Fellini's semi-autobiographical film 8½...

    as Carla Albanese
    • Tammy Blanchard
      Tammy Blanchard
      Tammy Blanchard is an American actress. She has worked primarily in films and television, making her professional start in the soap opera Guiding Light...

       – Gypsy as Louise
    • Mary Stuart Masterson
      Mary Stuart Masterson
      Mary Stuart Masterson is an American film, stage and television actress and director.-Early life:Masterson was born in New York City to writer/director Peter Masterson and actress Carlin Glynn. She has two siblings: Peter Masterson Jr., and Alexandra Masterson, who are both involved in the...

       – Nine
      Nine (musical)
      Nine is a musical with a book by Arthur Kopit, music and lyrics by Maury Yeston. The story is based on Federico Fellini's semi-autobiographical film 8½...

      as Luisa Contini
    • Chita Rivera
      Chita Rivera
      Chita Rivera is an American actress, dancer, and singer best known for her roles in musical theater. She is the first Hispanic woman to receive a Kennedy Center Honors award...

       – Nine
      Nine (musical)
      Nine is a musical with a book by Arthur Kopit, music and lyrics by Maury Yeston. The story is based on Federico Fellini's semi-autobiographical film 8½...

      as Lilaine La Fleur
    • Ashley Tuttle
      Ashley Tuttle
      Ashley Tuttle is an American musical theatre actress and dancer best known for her role in the musical Movin' Out, which earned her a Tony Award.-Biography:...

       – Movin' Out
      Movin' Out (musical)
      Movin' Out is a jukebox musical featuring the songs of Billy Joel.Conceived by Twyla Tharp, the musical tells the story of a generation of American youth growing up on Long Island during the 1960s and their experiences with the Vietnam War...

      as Judy

  • 2004: Anika Noni Rose
    Anika Noni Rose
    Anika Noni Rose is an American singer and actress known for her Tony Award winning performance in the Broadway production of Caroline, or Change and her starring roles in the films Dreamgirls and The Princess and the Frog....

     – Caroline, or Change
    Caroline, or Change
    Caroline, or Change is a through-composed musical with book and lyrics by Tony Kushner and score by Jeanine Tesori that combines spirituals, blues, Motown, classical music, and Jewish klezmer and folk music....

    as Emmie Thibodeaux
    • Beth Fowler
      Beth Fowler
      Beth Fowler is an American actress and singer.Born in Jersey City, New Jersey, Fowler was a teacher with a fondness for Broadway theatre when she decided to audition for Gantry in 1970. She was signed for the chorus and as understudy for the lead, but the show unfortunately closed on opening night...

       – The Boy from Oz
      The Boy from Oz
      The Boy from Oz is a jukebox musical based on the life of singer/songwriter Peter Allen and featuring songs written by him. The book is by Nick Enright. The production had its world premiere, directed by Gale Edwards, at Her Majesty's Theatre, Sydney, Australia, on 5 March 1998 and toured Brisbane,...

      as Marion Allen
    • Isabel Keating
      Isabel Keating
      -Biography:Keating is widely acclaimed for her portrayal of Judy Garland in the 2003 Broadway theatre production of The Boy From Oz, starring opposite Hugh Jackman, for which she received a Tony Award nomination and for which she won the Drama Desk Award and the Theatre World Award...

       – The Boy from Oz
      The Boy from Oz
      The Boy from Oz is a jukebox musical based on the life of singer/songwriter Peter Allen and featuring songs written by him. The book is by Nick Enright. The production had its world premiere, directed by Gale Edwards, at Her Majesty's Theatre, Sydney, Australia, on 5 March 1998 and toured Brisbane,...

      as Judy Garland
    • Jennifer Westfeldt
      Jennifer Westfeldt
      Jennifer Westfeldt is an American actress and screenwriter known for the hit 2001 independent film Kissing Jessica Stein, which she co-wrote with Heather Juergensen and in which the two women starred.- Early life :...

       – Wonderful Town
      Wonderful Town
      Wonderful Town is a musical with a book written by Joseph A. Fields and Jerome Chodorov, lyrics by Betty Comden and Adolph Green and music by Leonard Bernstein...

      as Eileen Sherwood
    • Karen Ziemba
      Karen Ziemba
      Karen Ziemba is an American actress, singer and dancer, best known for her work in musical theatre.-Biography:Ziemba was born in St. Joseph, Michigan, and went on to attend the University of Akron , where she studied dance and joined the Ohio Ballet in her sophomore year.Her Broadway debut was in...

       – Never Gonna Dance
      Never Gonna Dance
      Never Gonna Dance is a Broadway musical featuring the music of Jerome Kern. The musical was based on the 1936 Fred Astaire/Ginger Rogers film Swing Time. Lyricists include Oscar Hammerstein, Ira Gershwin, P. G...

      as Mabel


  • 2005: Sara Ramírez
    Sara Ramírez
    Sara Ramírez is a Mexican-American singer/songwriter and actress. She is known for her role as Callie Torres in Grey's Anatomy and as the original Lady of the Lake in the 2005 Broadway musical Spamalot, for which she won the Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Musical.-Early life:Ramírez...

     – Spamalot
    Spamalot
    Monty Python's Spamalot is a musical comedy "lovingly ripped off from" the 1975 film Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Like the film, it is a highly irreverent parody of the Arthurian Legend, but it differs from the film in many ways, especially in its parodies of Broadway theatre...

    as the Lady of the Lake
    • Joanna Gleason
      Joanna Gleason
      Joanna Gleason is a Canadian actress and singer. She is a Tony Award-winning musical theatre actress and has also had a number of notable film and TV roles.-Early life:...

       – Dirty Rotten Scoundrels
      Dirty Rotten Scoundrels (musical)
      Dirty Rotten Scoundrels is a Broadway musical, with music and lyrics by David Yazbek and a book by Jeffrey Lane; it is based on the film of the same name...

      as Muriel Eubanks
    • Celia Keenan-Bolger – The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee
      The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee
      The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee is a one act musical comedy conceived by Rebecca Feldman with music and lyrics by William Finn, a book by Rachel Sheinkin and additional material by Jay Reiss. The show centers on a fictional spelling bee set in a geographically ambiguous Putnam Valley...

      as Olive Ostrovsky
    • Jan Maxwell
      Jan Maxwell
      Jan Maxwell is an American stage and television actress. She is a four-time Tony Award nominee.-Biography:She is the daughter of former First District Judge Ralph B. Maxwell and Elizabeth Maxwell, a lawyer for the EPA. She attended West Fargo High School, West Fargo, North Dakota and Moorhead...

       – Chitty Chitty Bang Bang
      Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (musical)
      Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, also known as Chitty the Musical, is a stage musical based on the 1968 film produced by Cubby Broccoli. The music and lyrics were written by Richard and Robert Sherman with book by Jeremy Sams.-Productions:...

      as Baroness Bomburst
    • Kelli O'Hara
      Kelli O'Hara
      Kelli O'Hara is an American actress, singer, and songwriter.O'Hara has been nominated for three Tony Awards: for her performance as Clara Johnson in The Light in the Piazza; for her performance as Babe Williams in the Roundabout Theatre Company's revival of The Pajama Game, where she starred...

       – The Light in the Piazza as Clara Johnson

  • 2006: Beth Leavel
    Beth Leavel
    -Biography:Leavel was born in Raleigh, North Carolina. She attended Meredith College, earning a degree in social work. She completed a graduate theatre degree at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro in 1980. She acted during college, appearing in productions such as Cabaret and Hello,...

     – The Drowsy Chaperone
    The Drowsy Chaperone
    The Drowsy Chaperone is a musical with book by Bob Martin and Don McKellar and music and lyrics by Lisa Lambert and Greg Morrison. It debuted in 1998 at The Rivoli in Toronto and opened on Broadway on 1 May 2006. The show won the Tony Award for Best Book and Best Score. It started as a spoof of old...

    as Beatrice Stockwell
    • Carolee Carmello
      Carolee Carmello
      Carolee Carmello is an American actress best known for her performances in Broadway musicals.She made her Broadway debut in a small role in City of Angels...

       – Lestat
      Lestat (musical)
      Lestat is a Broadway musical inspired by Anne Rice's The Vampire Chronicles. The score is by Elton John and Bernie Taupin, book by Linda Woolverton and directed by Robert Jess Roth with musical staging by Matt West...

      as Gabrielle
    • Felicia P. Fields – The Color Purple
      The Color Purple (musical)
      The Color Purple is a Broadway musical based upon the novel The Color Purple by Alice Walker. It features music and lyrics written by Brenda Russell, Allee Willis and Stephen Bray, with a book by Marsha Norman. It ran on Broadway in 2005 and has been touring throughout the US...

      as Sofia
    • Megan Lawrence – The Pajama Game
      The Pajama Game
      The Pajama Game is a musical based on the novel 7½ Cents by Richard Bissell. It features a score by Richard Adler and Jerry Ross. The story deals with labor troubles in a pajama factory, where worker demands for a seven-and-a-half cents raise are going unheeded...

      as Gladys
    • Elisabeth Withers-Mendes – The Color Purple
      The Color Purple (musical)
      The Color Purple is a Broadway musical based upon the novel The Color Purple by Alice Walker. It features music and lyrics written by Brenda Russell, Allee Willis and Stephen Bray, with a book by Marsha Norman. It ran on Broadway in 2005 and has been touring throughout the US...

      as Shug Avery

  • 2007: Mary Louise Wilson
    Mary Louise Wilson
    Mary Louise Wilson is an American stage, film and television actress.-Stage:Broadway* Hot Spot — 1963 as Sue Ann* Flora, The Red Menace — 1965 as Comrade Ada* Lovers and Other Strangers — 1968 as Bernice...

     – Grey Gardens
    Grey Gardens (musical)
    Grey Gardens is an American musical with book by Doug Wright, music by Scott Frankel, and lyrics by Michael Korie, based on the 1975 documentary of the same title about the lives of Edith Ewing Bouvier Beale and her daughter Edith Bouvier Beale by Albert and David Maysles. The Beales were...

    as Edith Bouvier Beale
    • Charlotte d'Amboise
      Charlotte d'Amboise
      Charlotte d'Amboise is an American actress and dancer. She has played starring roles in musical theatre, and has been nominated for two Tony Awards and won the Los Angeles Ovation Awards for Best Leading Actress in a Musical for Chicago...

       – A Chorus Line
      A Chorus Line
      A Chorus Line is a 1975 musical about Broadway dancers auditioning for spots on a chorus line. The book was authored by James Kirkwood, Jr. and Nicholas Dante, lyrics were written by Edward Kleban, and music was composed by Marvin Hamlisch....

      as Cassie
    • Rebecca Luker
      Rebecca Luker
      Rebecca Luker is an American musical theatre actress and soprano who has appeared in several prominent Broadway productions.-Life and career:...

       – Mary Poppins
      Mary Poppins (musical)
      Mary Poppins is a Walt Disney Theatrical musical based on the similarly titled series of children's books by P. L. Travers and the Disney 1964 film. The West End production opened in December 2004 and received two Olivier Awards, one for Best Actress in a Musical and the other for Best Theatre...

      as Winifred Banks
    • Orfeh
      Orfeh
      Orfeh is an American singer, songwriter and Tony-nominated actress from New York City.-Biography:Orfeh, born and raised in Manhattan, began her career straight out of high school. She attended the famous LaGuardia High School for the Performing Arts, and got a record deal right after her graduation...

       – Legally Blonde: The Musical as Paulette Bonafonté
    • Karen Ziemba
      Karen Ziemba
      Karen Ziemba is an American actress, singer and dancer, best known for her work in musical theatre.-Biography:Ziemba was born in St. Joseph, Michigan, and went on to attend the University of Akron , where she studied dance and joined the Ohio Ballet in her sophomore year.Her Broadway debut was in...

       – Curtains
      Curtains (musical)
      Curtains is a musical with a book by Rupert Holmes, lyrics by Fred Ebb, and music by John Kander, with additional lyrics by Kander and Holmes....

      as Georgia Hendricks

  • 2008: Laura Benanti
    Laura Benanti
    Laura Benanti is an American actress of television, film and Broadway theatre noted for her award winning performance as Louise in the 2008 production of Gypsy.-Early years:...

     – Gypsy as Louise
    • de'Adre Aziza
      De'Adre Aziza
      De'Adre Danielle Aziza is an American actress and singer. She received a Tony Award nomination for Best Featured Actress in a Musical for Passing Strange, in which she played "teenage goddess" Edwina Williams, Dutch neo-hippie Marianna, and German revolutionary/filmmaker Sudabey...

       – Passing Strange
      Passing Strange
      Passing Strange is a rock musical about a young African American's artistic journey of self-discovery in Europe, drawing on heavy elements of existentialism, metafictional comedy, and the Künstlerroman. The musical's lyrics and book are by Stew with music and orchestrations by Heidi Rodewald and Stew...

      as Edwina/Marianna/Sudabey
    • Andrea Martin
      Andrea Martin
      Andrea Louise Martin is an American and Canadian actress and comedienne. She has appeared in films such as My Big Fat Greek Wedding, on stage in productions such as My Favorite Year, Fiddler on the Roof and Candide, and in the television series, SCTV.-Personal life:Martin, the oldest of three...

       – Young Frankenstein
      Young Frankenstein (musical)
      Young Frankenstein, officially known as The New Mel Brooks Musical Young Frankenstein, is a musical with a book by Mel Brooks and Thomas Meehan and music and lyrics by Brooks. It is based on the 1974 comedy film of the same name written by Brooks and Gene Wilder and directed by Brooks, who has...

      as Frau Blücher
    • Olga Merediz
      Olga Merediz
      Olga Merediz is an American Broadway, TV, and film actress. Merediz is probably best known for originating the role of Abuela Claudia in the Broadway musical In the Heights...

       – In the Heights as Abuela Claudia
    • Loretta Ables-Sayre – South Pacific
      South Pacific (musical)
      South Pacific is a musical with music by Richard Rodgers, lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II and book by Hammerstein and Joshua Logan. The story draws from James A. Michener's Pulitzer Prize-winning 1947 book Tales of the South Pacific, weaving together characters and elements from several of its...

      as Bloody Mary

  • 2009: Karen Olivo
    Karen Olivo
    Karen Olivo is a stage and television actress, who is known for originating the role of Vanessa in the Tony Award–winning musical In the Heights both on and off Broadway. She won her Tony Award for her performance as Anita in the revival of West Side Story...

     – West Side Story as Anita
    • Jennifer Damiano
      Jennifer Damiano
      Jennifer Damiano is an American actress and singer, most known for originating the role of Natalie Goodman in Next to Normal on Broadway. She was nominated for the 2009 Tony Award for Best Performance by a Featured Actress in a Musical for her performance in that musical...

       – Next to Normal as Natalie Goodman
    • Haydn Gwynne
      Haydn Gwynne
      -Personal life:Born in Hurstpierpoint, Sussex to father Guy Thomas Hayden-Gwynne, she played county level tennis before studying Sociology at the University of Nottingham, and is fluent in French and Italian...

       – Billy Elliot the Musical
      Billy Elliot the Musical
      Billy Elliot the Musical is a musical based on the 2000 film Billy Elliot. The music is by Sir Elton John, and book and lyrics are by Lee Hall, who wrote the film's screenplay. The plot revolves around motherless Billy, who trades boxing gloves for ballet shoes...

      as Mrs. Wilkinson
    • Martha Plimpton
      Martha Plimpton
      Martha Campbell Plimpton is an American actress and singer and former model. Plimpton is a screen, stage and television actress. She first appeared as Jonsy in the feature film River Rats before rising to prominence in the Richard Donner film The Goonies portraying the character Stef...

       – Pal Joey as Gladys
    • Carole Shelley
      Carole Shelley
      Carole Shelley is an English actress. Among her many stage roles are the character of Madame Morrible in the original Broadway cast of the musical Wicked.-Life and career:...

       – Billy Elliot the Musical
      Billy Elliot the Musical
      Billy Elliot the Musical is a musical based on the 2000 film Billy Elliot. The music is by Sir Elton John, and book and lyrics are by Lee Hall, who wrote the film's screenplay. The plot revolves around motherless Billy, who trades boxing gloves for ballet shoes...

      as Grandma


2010s

  • 2010: Katie Finneran
    Katie Finneran
    Katie Finneran is an American actress of film, stage, and television noted for her Tony Award-winning performances in the Broadway play Noises Off in 2002, and the musical Promises, Promises in 2010.-Personal life:...

     – Promises, Promises
    Promises, Promises
    Promises, Promises is a musical based on the 1960 film The Apartment. The music is by Burt Bacharach, lyrics by Hal David, and book by Neil Simon. Musical numbers for the original Broadway production were choreographed by Michael Bennett; Robert Moore directed and David Merrick produced...

    as Marge MacDougall
    • Barbara Cook
      Barbara Cook
      Barbara Cook is an American singer and actress who first came to prominence in the 1950s after starring in the original Broadway musicals Candide and The Music Man among others, winning a Tony Award for the latter...

       – Sondheim on Sondheim
      Sondheim on Sondheim
      Sondheim on Sondheim is a musical revue consisting of music and lyrics written by Stephen Sondheim for his many shows. It is conceived and directed by James Lapine. The revue had a limited run on Broadway in 2010.-Background:...

      as herself
    • Angela Lansbury
      Angela Lansbury
      Angela Brigid Lansbury CBE is an English actress and singer in theatre, television and motion pictures, whose career has spanned eight decades and earned her more performance Tony Awards than any other individual , with five wins...

       – A Little Night Music
      A Little Night Music
      A Little Night Music is a musical with music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim and book by Hugh Wheeler. Inspired by the Ingmar Bergman film Smiles of a Summer Night, it involves the romantic lives of several couples. Its title is a literal English translation of the German name for Mozart's Serenade...

      as Madame Armfeldt
    • Karine Plantadit
      Karine Plantadit
      Karine Plantadit is a dancer and performer. She was born and raised in Cameroon. She moved to Cannes, France at age 14 to study dance...

       – Come Fly Away
      Come Fly Away
      Come Fly Away is a dance revue conceived, directed and choreographed by Twyla Tharp, around the songs of Frank Sinatra. The musical, set in a New York City nightclub, follows four couples as they look for love....

      as Kate
    • Lillias White
      Lillias White
      Lillias White is an American singer and actress.The Brooklyn, New York native made her Broadway debut in Barnum in 1981. She understudied the role of Effie in the original 1981 production of Dreamgirls and played the part in the 1987 revival...

       – Fela!
      Fela!
      Fela! is a musical with a book by Bill T. Jones and Jim Lewis, based on music and lyrics by the late Nigerian singer Fela Kuti, with additional music by Aaron Johnson and Jordan Mclean and additional lyrics by Jim Lewis. It is based on events in the life of groundbreaking Nigerian composer and...

      as Funmilayo

  • 2011: Nikki M. James – The Book of Mormon as Nabalungi
    • Laura Benanti
      Laura Benanti
      Laura Benanti is an American actress of television, film and Broadway theatre noted for her award winning performance as Louise in the 2008 production of Gypsy.-Early years:...

       – Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown
      Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown (musical)
      Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown is a musical with a book by Jeffrey Lane and music and lyrics by David Yazbek. The musical tells the tale of a group of women in late 20th-century Madrid whose relationships with men lead to a tumultuous 48 hours of love, confusion and passion...

      as Candela
    • Tammy Blanchard
      Tammy Blanchard
      Tammy Blanchard is an American actress. She has worked primarily in films and television, making her professional start in the soap opera Guiding Light...

       – How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying
      How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying
      How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying is a musical with music and lyrics by Frank Loesser and book by Abe Burrows, Jack Weinstock, and Willie Gilbert, based on Shepherd Mead's 1952 book of the same name....

      as Hedy La Rue
    • Victoria Clark
      Victoria Clark
      Victoria Clark is an American musical theatre singer and actress. Clark has performed in many Broadway musicals and in other theatre, film and television work, and her soprano voice can be heard on numerous cast albums and several animated films...

       – Sister Act as Mother Superior
    • Patti LuPone
      Patti LuPone
      Patti Ann LuPone is an American singer and actress, known for her Tony Award-winning performances as Eva Perón in the 1979 stage musical Evita and as Madame Rose in the 2008 Broadway revival of Gypsy, and for her Olivier Award-winning performance as Fantine in the original London cast of Les...

       – Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown
      Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown (musical)
      Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown is a musical with a book by Jeffrey Lane and music and lyrics by David Yazbek. The musical tells the tale of a group of women in late 20th-century Madrid whose relationships with men lead to a tumultuous 48 hours of love, confusion and passion...

      as Lucia

Multiple nominees

4 nominations
  • Laura Benanti
    Laura Benanti
    Laura Benanti is an American actress of television, film and Broadway theatre noted for her award winning performance as Louise in the 2008 production of Gypsy.-Early years:...

  • Andrea Martin
    Andrea Martin
    Andrea Louise Martin is an American and Canadian actress and comedienne. She has appeared in films such as My Big Fat Greek Wedding, on stage in productions such as My Favorite Year, Fiddler on the Roof and Candide, and in the television series, SCTV.-Personal life:Martin, the oldest of three...



3 nominations
  • Karen Ziemba
    Karen Ziemba
    Karen Ziemba is an American actress, singer and dancer, best known for her work in musical theatre.-Biography:Ziemba was born in St. Joseph, Michigan, and went on to attend the University of Akron , where she studied dance and joined the Ohio Ballet in her sophomore year.Her Broadway debut was in...


2 nominations
  • Tammy Blanchard
    Tammy Blanchard
    Tammy Blanchard is an American actress. She has worked primarily in films and television, making her professional start in the soap opera Guiding Light...

  • Gretha Boston
    Gretha Boston
    Gretha Boston is an American actress. Boston made her Broadway debut as "Queenie" in the 1994 revival of Show Boat, directed by Hal Prince...

  • Barbara Cook
    Barbara Cook
    Barbara Cook is an American singer and actress who first came to prominence in the 1950s after starring in the original Broadway musicals Candide and The Music Man among others, winning a Tony Award for the latter...

  • Helen Gallagher
    Helen Gallagher
    Helen Gallagher is an American actress, dancer, singer and makeup artist.-Early years:Born in Brooklyn, she was raised in Scarsdale, New York for several years until the Wall Street crash which heralded the Great Depression, and her family moved to the Bronx. Her parents separated and she was...

  • Cady Huffman
    Cady Huffman
    Catherine Elizabeth “Cady” Huffman is a Tony Award-winning American actress.-Early life:Huffman was born in Santa Barbara, California to Lorayne, a pre-school assistant director turned realtor, and Clifford Huffman, an attorney...

  • Judy Kaye
    Judy Kaye
    Judy Kaye is an American singer and actress. She has appeared in stage musicals, plays, and operas. Kaye has been in long runs on Broadway in the musicals The Phantom of the Opera, Ragtime and Mamma Mia!-Biography:...

  • Patsy Kelly
    Patsy Kelly
    Patsy Kelly was an American stage and film comedic actress.-Early life and career:Kelly was born Sarah Veronica Rose Kelly in Brooklyn, New York to Irish immigrants, John and Delia Kelly, and made her Broadway debut in 1928...

  • Jane Krakowski
    Jane Krakowski
    Jane Krakowski is an American actress and singer. She is most well known for her performance of Elaine Vassal on Ally McBeal, for which she was nominated for a Golden Globe Award, and for her current role as Jenna Maroney on the NBC sitcom 30 Rock, for which she has been nominated for three Emmy...

  • Marcia Lewis
    Marcia Lewis
    Marcia Lewis was an American character actress and singer. She has been nominated twice for the Tony Award as Best Featured Actress in a Musical and twice for the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Featured Actress in a Musical .-Biography:Lewis was born in Melrose, Massachusetts and raised in...

  • Priscilla Lopez
    Priscilla Lopez
    Priscilla Lopez is an American singer, dancer, and actress.-Early life:Lopez was born in the Bronx, New York to Francisco Lopez, a hotel banquet foreman and Laura , who were moved to New York from their native Puerto Rico...

  • Patti LuPone
    Patti LuPone
    Patti Ann LuPone is an American singer and actress, known for her Tony Award-winning performances as Eva Perón in the 1979 stage musical Evita and as Madame Rose in the 2008 Broadway revival of Gypsy, and for her Olivier Award-winning performance as Fantine in the original London cast of Les...

  • Julienne Marie
  • Millicent Martin
    Millicent Martin
    Millicent Mary Lillian Martin is an English actress, singer and comedienne.Martin was born in Romford, England. She made her Broadway debut opposite Julie Andrews in The Boy Friend in 1954...

  • Audra McDonald
    Audra McDonald
    Audra Ann McDonald is an American actress and singer. She currently stars in the ABC television drama Private Practice as Dr. Naomi Bennett. She has appeared on the stage in both musicals and dramas, such as Ragtime and A Raisin in the Sun...

  • Josephine Premice
  • Chita Rivera
    Chita Rivera
    Chita Rivera is an American actress, dancer, and singer best known for her roles in musical theater. She is the first Hispanic woman to receive a Kennedy Center Honors award...

  • Mary Testa
    Mary Testa
    Mary Testa is an American stage actress. She is a two-time Tony Award nominee, for performances in revivals of Leonard Bernstein's On the Town and 42nd Street ....

  • Louise Troy
    Louise Troy
    Louise Troy was an American actress of stage and screen. She is best known for her performances in Tovarich and Walking Happy , both of which she was nominated for a Tony Award...

  • Lillias White
    Lillias White
    Lillias White is an American singer and actress.The Brooklyn, New York native made her Broadway debut in Barnum in 1981. She understudied the role of Effie in the original 1981 production of Dreamgirls and played the part in the 1987 revival...

  • Mary Louise Wilson
    Mary Louise Wilson
    Mary Louise Wilson is an American stage, film and television actress.-Stage:Broadway* Hot Spot — 1963 as Sue Ann* Flora, The Red Menace — 1965 as Comrade Ada* Lovers and Other Strangers — 1968 as Bernice...



Statistics

  • There have been no ties in the history of this category.
  • There is one role that has resulted in a win for both actresses portraying it: Marge MacDougall in Promises, Promises
    Promises, Promises
    Promises, Promises is a musical based on the 1960 film The Apartment. The music is by Burt Bacharach, lyrics by Hal David, and book by Neil Simon. Musical numbers for the original Broadway production were choreographed by Michael Bennett; Robert Moore directed and David Merrick produced...

    :
    • 1969 – Marian Mercer
      Marian Mercer
      Marian Ethel Mercer was an American actress and singer.Born in Akron, Ohio, she graduated from the University of Michigan, then spent several seasons working in summer stock. She made her Broadway debut in the chorus of the short-lived musical, Greenwillow in 1960...

    • 2010 – Katie Finneran
      Katie Finneran
      Katie Finneran is an American actress of film, stage, and television noted for her Tony Award-winning performances in the Broadway play Noises Off in 2002, and the musical Promises, Promises in 2010.-Personal life:...

  • There have also been other winners emerging from the same musical, however, but never for playing the same role:
    • From Nine
      Nine (musical)
      Nine is a musical with a book by Arthur Kopit, music and lyrics by Maury Yeston. The story is based on Federico Fellini's semi-autobiographical film 8½...

      : Liliane Montevecchi
      Liliane Montevecchi
      Liliane Montevecchi is a French actress, dancer, and singer.Montevecchi began her career as a prima ballerina in Roland Petit's dance company...

      , as Liliane la Fleur, in 1982, and Jane Krakowski
      Jane Krakowski
      Jane Krakowski is an American actress and singer. She is most well known for her performance of Elaine Vassal on Ally McBeal, for which she was nominated for a Golden Globe Award, and for her current role as Jenna Maroney on the NBC sitcom 30 Rock, for which she has been nominated for three Emmy...

      , as Carla, in 2003.
  • In fact, the musical Nine
    Nine (musical)
    Nine is a musical with a book by Arthur Kopit, music and lyrics by Maury Yeston. The story is based on Federico Fellini's semi-autobiographical film 8½...

    holds a record of a combined total of six nominations to its female performers in this category, curiously, twice for each role, in 1982 and 2003:
    • Liliane Montevecchi
      Liliane Montevecchi
      Liliane Montevecchi is a French actress, dancer, and singer.Montevecchi began her career as a prima ballerina in Roland Petit's dance company...

       (1982) and Chita Rivera
      Chita Rivera
      Chita Rivera is an American actress, dancer, and singer best known for her roles in musical theater. She is the first Hispanic woman to receive a Kennedy Center Honors award...

       (2003), as Liliane la Fleur;
    • Karen Akers
      Karen Akers
      Karen Akers is an American actress and singer, who has appeared on Broadway, cabaret and film.-Background:She was born Karen Orth-Pallavicini in New York City on October 13, 1945. Her ancestry was a mixture of European stock: her immigrant father, Heinrick C...

       (1982) and Mary Stuart Masterson
      Mary Stuart Masterson
      Mary Stuart Masterson is an American film, stage and television actress and director.-Early life:Masterson was born in New York City to writer/director Peter Masterson and actress Carlin Glynn. She has two siblings: Peter Masterson Jr., and Alexandra Masterson, who are both involved in the...

       (2003), as Louisa Contini;
    • Anita Morris
      Anita Morris
      -Career:Among many roles, Morris's most prominent film role was as Carol Dodsworth, the mistress to Danny DeVito, in Ruthless People and for her sensual performance as Carla in the musical Nine opposite Raul Julia. While nominated for a Best Featured Actress Tony Award as Carla, she lost to Liliane...

       (1982) and Jane Krakowski
      Jane Krakowski
      Jane Krakowski is an American actress and singer. She is most well known for her performance of Elaine Vassal on Ally McBeal, for which she was nominated for a Golden Globe Award, and for her current role as Jenna Maroney on the NBC sitcom 30 Rock, for which she has been nominated for three Emmy...

       (2003), as Carla Albanese.
  • The role of Louise, in Gypsy, holds the record for most nominations in this category, with five:
    • 1960 – Sandra Church
      Sandra Church
      Sandra Church is an American actress in films and theatre, primarily known for her performance as Gypsy Rose Lee in the 1959 musical Gypsy: A Musical Fable, for which she was nominated for a Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Musical.- Early life :Church was born and raised in San...

    • 1975 – Zan Charisse
    • 1990 – Crista Moore
    • 2003 – Tammy Blanchard
      Tammy Blanchard
      Tammy Blanchard is an American actress. She has worked primarily in films and television, making her professional start in the soap opera Guiding Light...

    • 2008 – Laura Benanti
      Laura Benanti
      Laura Benanti is an American actress of television, film and Broadway theatre noted for her award winning performance as Louise in the 2008 production of Gypsy.-Early years:...

  • Audra McDonald
    Audra McDonald
    Audra Ann McDonald is an American actress and singer. She currently stars in the ABC television drama Private Practice as Dr. Naomi Bennett. She has appeared on the stage in both musicals and dramas, such as Ragtime and A Raisin in the Sun...

     is, so far, the only performer to achieve multiple wins in this category, with two. The record of nominations, however, is held by Andrea Martin
    Andrea Martin
    Andrea Louise Martin is an American and Canadian actress and comedienne. She has appeared in films such as My Big Fat Greek Wedding, on stage in productions such as My Favorite Year, Fiddler on the Roof and Candide, and in the television series, SCTV.-Personal life:Martin, the oldest of three...

    , with four nominations and one win.
  • There has never been a consecutive winner in this category. There have been, though, two consecutive nominations. Louise Troy
    Louise Troy
    Louise Troy was an American actress of stage and screen. She is best known for her performances in Tovarich and Walking Happy , both of which she was nominated for a Tony Award...

     holds this particular distinction, as she was consecutively nominated in 1963 and 1964.
  • The record for the longest span between nominations for a particular performer is held by Barbara Cook
    Barbara Cook
    Barbara Cook is an American singer and actress who first came to prominence in the 1950s after starring in the original Broadway musicals Candide and The Music Man among others, winning a Tony Award for the latter...

    , whose nominations for The Music Man
    The Music Man
    The Music Man is a musical with book, music, and lyrics by Meredith Willson, based on a story by Willson and Franklin Lacey. The plot concerns con man Harold Hill, who poses as a boys' band organizer and leader and sells band instruments and uniforms to naive townsfolk before skipping town with...

    in 1958 and Sondheim on Sondheim
    Sondheim on Sondheim
    Sondheim on Sondheim is a musical revue consisting of music and lyrics written by Stephen Sondheim for his many shows. It is conceived and directed by James Lapine. The revue had a limited run on Broadway in 2010.-Background:...

    in 2010 are set apart by 52 years.
  • The record for the longest span between nominations for a particular role is held by that of Gladys, from The Pajama Game
    The Pajama Game
    The Pajama Game is a musical based on the novel 7½ Cents by Richard Bissell. It features a score by Richard Adler and Jerry Ross. The story deals with labor troubles in a pajama factory, where worker demands for a seven-and-a-half cents raise are going unheeded...

    . Carol Haney
    Carol Haney
    Carol Haney was an American dancer and actress. After assisting Gene Kelly in choreographing films, Haney won a Tony Award for her role in The Pajama Game...

    's win in 1955 and Megan Lawrence's nomination for the portrayal of the same role, in 2006, are set apart by 51 years, over half a century.
  • Daisy Eagan
    Daisy Eagan
    Daisy Eagan is an American actress.In 1991 she won the Tony Award for Best Performance by a Featured Actress in a Musical for playing Mary Lennox in The Secret Garden...

     is the youngest winner in this category. She was 11 years old when she won for The Secret Garden
    The Secret Garden (musical)
    The Secret Garden is a musical based on the 1911 novel of the same name by Frances Hodgson Burnett. The musical's book and lyrics are by Marsha Norman, with music by Lucy Simon...

    in 1991. Mary Louise Wilson
    Mary Louise Wilson
    Mary Louise Wilson is an American stage, film and television actress.-Stage:Broadway* Hot Spot — 1963 as Sue Ann* Flora, The Red Menace — 1965 as Comrade Ada* Lovers and Other Strangers — 1968 as Bernice...

     is the oldest winner, receiving her award for Grey Gardens
    Grey Gardens (musical)
    Grey Gardens is an American musical with book by Doug Wright, music by Scott Frankel, and lyrics by Michael Korie, based on the 1975 documentary of the same title about the lives of Edith Ewing Bouvier Beale and her daughter Edith Bouvier Beale by Albert and David Maysles. The Beales were...

    in 2007 at age 74.

External links

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