Drama League Award for Distinguished Performance

The Drama League Award for Distinguished Performance, originally known as the Delia Austrian Medal, is a theater award presented annually since 1935 by The Drama League for the "most distinguished" performance of the theater season.^[1] The award is named for theater reviewer Delia Austrian.^[2][3] An artist may only win the award once in their lifetime.^[4]

Drama League Award for Distinguished Performance
Awarded for	Distinguished Performance
Location	New York City
Country	United States
Presented by	Drama League
First award	1935
Currently held by	Nicole Scherzinger, Sunset Boulevard (2025)
Website	dramaleague.org

Winners

Year	Recipient	Work	Ref[1]
1935	Katherine Cornell	Romeo and Juliet	[5]
1936	Helen Hayes	Victoria Regina	[5][6]
1937	Maurice Evans	King Richard II	[5][7]
1938	Cedric Hardwicke	Shadow and Substance	[5]
1939	Raymond Massey	Abe Lincoln in Illinois	[5][8]
1940	Paul Muni	Key Largo	[5]
1941	Paul Lukas	Watch on the Rhine	[5][2]
1942	Judith Evelyn	Angel Street	[5]
1943	Alfred Lunt Lynn Fontanne	The Pirate	[5][9]
1944	Elisabeth Bergner[a]	The Two Mrs. Carrolls	[3]
1945	Mady Christians	I Remember Mama	[5]
1946	Louis Calhern	The Magnificent Yankee	[5]
1947	Ingrid Bergman	Joan of Lorraine	[5]
1948	Judith Anderson	Medea	[5]
1949	Robert Morley	Edward, My Son	[5]
1950	Grace George	The Velvet Glove	[5]
1951	Claude Rains	Darkness at Noon	[5]
1952	Julie Harris	I Am a Camera	[5]
1953	Shirley Booth	The Time of the Cuckoo	[5]
1954	Josephine Hull	The Solid Gold Cadillac	[5]
1955	Viveca Lindfors	Anastasia	[5]
1956	David Wayne	The Ponder Heart	[5]
1957	Eli Wallach	Major Barbara	[5]
1958	Ralph Bellamy	Sunrise at Campobello	[5]
1959	Cyril Ritchard	The Pleasure of His Company	[5]
1960	Jessica Tandy	Five Finger Exercise	[5]
1961	Hume Cronyn	Big Fish, Little Fish	[5]
1962	Paul Scofield	A Man for All Seasons	[5]
1963	Charles Boyer	Lord Pengo	[5]
1964	Alec Guinness	Dylan	[5][10]
1965	John Gielgud	Tiny Alice	[5]
1966	Richard Kiley	Man of La Mancha	[5]
1967	Rosemary Harris	The Wild Duck	[5]
1968	Zoe Caldwell	The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie	[5]
1969	Alec McCowen	Hadrian the Seventh	[5]
1970	James Stewart	Harvey	[5]
1971	Anthony Quayle	Sleuth	[5]
1972	Eileen Atkins Claire Bloom	Vivat! Vivat Regina!	[5]
1973	Alan Bates	Butley	[5]
1974	Christopher Plummer	The Good Doctor	[5]
1975	John Wood	Sherlock Holmes	[5]
1976	Eva Le Gallienne	The Royal Family	[5]
1977	Tom Courtenay	Otherwise Engaged	[5]
1978	Frank Langella	Dracula	[5]
1979	Frances Sternhagen	On Golden Pond	[5]
1980	Roy Scheider	Betrayal	[5]
1981	Ian McKellen	Amadeus	[11]
1982	Milo O'Shea	Mass Appeal	[12]
1983	Kate Nelligan Edward Herrmann	Plenty	[13]
1984	Jeremy Irons	The Real Thing	[14]
1985	Derek Jacobi	Cyrano de Bergerac and Much Ado About Nothing	[15]
1986	Bernadette Peters	Song and Dance	[16]
1987	James Earl Jones	Fences	[17]
1988	John Lithgow	M. Butterfly	[18]
1989	Pauline Collins	Shirley Valentine	[19]
1990	Robert Morse	Tru	[20]
1991	Stockard Channing	Six Degrees of Separation	[20]
1992	Glenn Close	Death and the Maiden	[20]
1993	Stephen Rea	Someone Who'll Watch Over Me	[20]
1994	Sam Waterston	Abe Lincoln in Illinois	[20]
1995	Cherry Jones	The Heiress	[21]
1996	Uta Hagen	Mrs. Klein	[22]
1997	Charles Durning Bebe Neuwirth	The Gin Game Chicago	[23]
1998	Brian Stokes Mitchell	Ragtime	[24]
1999	Kathleen Chalfant	Wit	[25]
2000	Eileen Heckart	The Waverly Gallery	[26]
2001	Mary-Louise Parker Gary Sinise	Proof One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest	[27]
2002	Liam Neeson	The Crucible	[28]
2003	Harvey Fierstein	Hairspray	[29]
2004	Hugh Jackman	The Boy from Oz	[30]
2005	Norbert Leo Butz	Dirty Rotten Scoundrels	[31]
2006	Christine Ebersole	Grey Gardens	[32]
2007	Liev Schreiber	Talk Radio and Macbeth	[33]
2008	Patti LuPone	Gypsy	[34]
2009	Geoffrey Rush	Exit the King	[35]
2010	Alfred Molina	Red	[36]
2011	Mark Rylance	Jerusalem and La Bête	[37]
2012	Audra McDonald	Porgy and Bess	[38]
2013	Nathan Lane	The Nance	[39]
2014	Neil Patrick Harris	Hedwig and the Angry Inch	[40]
2015	Chita Rivera	The Visit	[41]
2016	Lin-Manuel Miranda	Hamilton	[4]
2017	Ben Platt	Dear Evan Hansen	[4]
2018	Glenda Jackson	Three Tall Women	[4]
2019	Bryan Cranston	Network	[42]
2020	Danny Burstein	Moulin Rouge!	[43]
2021	No Award Given due to the COVID-19 pandemic
2022	Sutton Foster	The Music Man	[44]
2023	Annaleigh Ashford	Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street	[4]
2024	Sarah Paulson	Appropriate	[45]
2025	Nicole Scherzinger	Sunset Boulevard	[46]

Notes

1. The Drama League website does not list Bergner as the recipient in 1944, instead listing Lynn Fontanne, who is listed in other sources as co-recipient with Alfred Lunt in 1943.