WhatsOnStage Award for Best Actor in a Play

WhatsOnStage Award for Best Performer in a Male Identifying Role in a Play
WhatsOnStage Award for Best Performer in a Male Identifying Role in a Play
Awarded for	Excellence in a leading role in a play
Country	United Kingdom
Presented by	WhatsOnStage.com
First awarded	2001
Currently held by	James McAvoy (2022)

The WhatsOnStage Award for Best Performer in a Male Identifying Role in a Play is an annual award presented by WhatsOnStage.com as part of the annual WhatsOnStage Awards. Founded in 2001 as the Theatregoers' Choice Awards, the WhatsOnStage Awards are based on a popular vote recognising performers and productions in London's West End theatre.

This award is given to a person who has performed a leading male identifying role in a play during the eligibility year. Introduced in 2001 as the award for Best Actor in a Play, the category was renamed in 2022 in an effort to be more inclusive. The category was discontinued following the 2022 ceremony and was replaced with the gender-neutral WhatsOnstage Award for Best Performer in a Play.

First presented to Conleth Hill at the inaugural ceremony, Kenneth Branagh, Kevin Spacey and David Tennant are the only actors to have won the award twice.

Winners and nominees

2000s

Year	Performer	Play	Male Identifying Character
2001^[1]	Conleth Hill	Stones in His Pockets	Charlie Conlon
2002^[2]	Alan Rickman	Private Lives	Elyot Chase
	Ben Daniels	Tales from Hollywood	Ödön von Horváth
	Henry Goodman	Feelgood	Eddie
	Jasper Britton	Japes	Michael
	Paul Rudd	The Shape of Things	Adam Sorenson
	Simon Russell Beale	Humble Boy	Felix Humble
2003^[3]
	Samuel West	Hamlet	Prince Hamlet
	Daniel Craig	A Number	B1 / B2 / Michael Black
	Mark Rylance	Twelfth Night	Olivia
	Simon Russell Beale	Uncle Vanya / Twelfth Night	Ivan Petrovich Voynitsky / Malvolio
	Tom Georgeson	Frozen	Ralph Wantage
	Woody Harrelson	On an Average Day	Bob
2004^[4]	Kenneth Branagh	Edmond	Edmond Burke
	Conleth Hill	Democracy	Gunter Guillaume
	Matthew Kelly	Of Mice and Men	Lennie
	Michael Sheen	Caligula	Caligula
	Ralph Fiennes	Brand	Brand
	Tom Hollander	The Hotel in Amsterdam	Laurie
2005^[5]
	Christian Slater	One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest	Randle McMurphy
	Ben Whishaw	Hamlet	Prince Hamlet
	Jonathan Pryce	The Goat, or Who Is Sylvia?
	Michael Gambon	Endgame	Martin Gray
	Richard Griffiths	The History Boys	Douglas Hector
	Stanley Townsend	Shining City	John
2006^[6]	Kevin Spacey	Richard II	Richard II
	Brian Dennehy	Death of a Salesman	Willy Loman
	Con O'Neill	Telstar	Joe Meek
	Derek Jacobi	Don Carlos	Philip II
	Rob Lowe	A Few Good Men	Lieutenant Daniel Kaffee
	Simon Russell Beale	The Philanthropist	Philip
2007^[7]	Kevin Spacey	A Moon for the Misbegotten	Jim Tyrone
	Alan Cumming	Bent	Max
	David Haig	Donkeys' Years	Christopher Headingley
	Iain Glen	The Crucible	John Proctor
	Michael Sheen	Frost/Nixon	David Frost
	Frank Langella	Frost/Nixon	Richard Nixon
	Rufus Sewell	Rock 'n' Roll	Jan
2008^[8]	Ian McKellen	King Lear	King Lear
	Charles Dance	Shadowlands	C. S. Lewis
	John Simm	Elling	Elling
	Paterson Joseph	The Emperor Jones	Brutus Jones
	Patrick Stewart	Macbeth	Macbeth
	Robert Lindsay	The Entertainer	Archie Rice
2009^[9]	Kenneth Branagh	Ivanov	Nikolai Ivanov
	Adam Godley	Rain Man	Raymond Babbit
	Chiwetel Ejiofor	Othello	Othello
	Eddie Redmayne	Now or Later	John Jr.
	Ian McDiarmid	Six Characters in Search of an Author	Father
	Kevin Spacey	Speed-the-Plow	Charlie Fox
	Jeff Goldblum	Speed-the-Plow	Bobby Gould

2010s

Year	Performer	Play	Male Identifying Character
2010^[10]	Jude Law	Hamlet	Prince Hamlet
	David Harewood	The Mountaintop	Martin Luther King Jr.
	Dominic West	Life Is a Dream	Segismundo
	Ken Stott	A View from the Bridge	Eddie Carbone
	Mark Rylance	Jerusalem	Johnny "Rooster" Byron
	Samuel West	Enron	Jeffrey Skilling
2011^[11]	David Suchet	All My Sons	Joe Keller
	Benedict Cumberbatch	After the Dance	David Scott-Fowler
	Matthew Macfadyen	Private Lives	Elyot Chase
	Rory Kinnear	Hamlet	Prince Hamlet
	Simon Russell Beale	Deathtrap	Sidney Bruhl
	Toby Stephens	The Real Thing	Henry
2012^[12]	James Corden	One Man, Two Guvnors	Francis Henshall
	Benedict Cumberbatch	Frankenstein	Victor Frankenstein
	Jude Law	Anna Christie	Mat Burke
	Kevin Spacey	Richard III	Richard III
	David Tennant	Much Ado About Nothing	Benedick
	James Earl Jones	Driving Miss Daisy	Hoke Colburn
2013^[13]	Rupert Everett	The Judas Kiss	Oscar Wilde
	David Haig	The Madness of George III	George III
	Adrian Lester	Red Velvet	Ira Aldridge
	David Suchet	Long Day's Journey into Night	James Tyrone
	Luke Treadaway	The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time	Christopher Boone
	Mark Rylance	Twelfth Night / Richard III	Olivia / Richard III
2014^[14]	Daniel Radcliffe	The Cripple of Inishmaan
	Lenny Henry	Fences	Troy Maxson
	Rory Kinnear	Othello	Othello
	James McAvoy	Macbeth	Macbeth
	Ben Whishaw	Peter and Alice	Peter Llewelyn Davies
2015^[15]	David Tennant	Richard III	Richard III
	Richard Armitage	The Crucible	John Proctor
	Tom Bateman	Shakespeare in Love	William Shakespeare
	Tom Hiddleston	Coriolanus	Coriolanus
	Mark Strong	A View from the Bridge	Eddie Carbone
2016^[16]	Benedict Cumberbatch	Hamlet	Prince Hamlet
	Bradley Cooper	The Elephant Man	Joseph Merrick
	Alex Hassell	Henry V	Henry V
	James McAvoy	The Ruling Class	Jack Gurney
	Mark Rylance	Farinelli and the King	Philip V
2017^[17]	Jamie Parker	Harry Potter and the Cursed Child	Harry Potter
	Kenneth Branagh	The Entertainer	Archie Rice
	Ralph Fiennes	Richard III	Richard III
	Ian Hallard	The Boys in the Band	Michael
	Ian McKellen	No Man's Land	Spooner
2018^[18]	David Tennant	Don Juan in Soho	Don Juan
	Bryan Cranston	Network	Howard Beale
	Martin Freeman	Labour of Love	MP David Lyons
	Andrew Garfield	Angels in America	Prior Walter
	Andrew Scott	Hamlet	Prince Hamlet
2019^[19]	Aidan Turner	The Lieutenant of Inishmore	Padraic
	Mark Gatiss	The Madness of George III	George III
	Arinzé Kene	Misty	Performer
	Colin Morgan	Translations	Owen
	Kyle Soller	The Inheritance	Eric Glass

2020s

Year	Performer	Play	Male Identifying Character
2020^[20]	Andrew Scott	Present Laughter
	Tom Hiddleston	Betrayal	Robert
	Laurie Kynaston	The Son	Nicolas
	Wendell Pierce	Death of a Salesman	Willy Loman
	Matt Smith	Lungs	M
2021	Not presented due to impact on theatres of COVID-19 pandemic
2022^[21]
	James McAvoy	Cyrano de Bergerac	Cyrano de Bergerac
	Richard Armitage	Uncle Vanya	dr Astrov (Mikhail Lvovich Astrov)
	Ben Daniels	The Normal Heart	Ned Weeks
	Omari Douglas	Constellations	Manuel
	Hadley Fraser	2:22 A Ghost Story	Sam
	Henry Lewis	Magic Goes Wrong	Mind Mangler

Multiple wins and nominations

Wins

2 wins

Nominations

4 nominations

3 nominations

Kenneth Branagh
Benedict Cumberbatch
James McAvoy
David Tennant

2 nominations

References

External links

Official website

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