Pulitzer Prize for Drama

The Pulitzer Prize for Drama was first awarded in 1918.

From 1918 to 2006, the Drama Prize was unlike the majority of the other Pulitzer Prizes: during these years, the eligibility period for the drama prize ran from March 2 to March 1, to reflect the Broadway 'season' rather than the calendar year. The decision was made, however, that the 2007 Prize would consider works staged during an eligibility period of January 1 to December 31, 2006—thus bringing the schedule for the Drama Prize in line with those of the other prizes.

The drama jury, which consists of one academic and four critics, attends plays in New York and in regional theaters. The Pulitzer board has the authority to overrule the jury's choice, however, as happened in 1986 when the jury chose the CIVIL warS to receive the prize, but due to the board's opposition no award was given.

In 1955, Joseph Pulitzer, Jr. pressured the prize jury into presenting the Prize to Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, which the jury considered the weakest of the five shortlisted nominees ("amateurishly constructed... from the stylistic points of view annoyingly pretentious"), instead of Clifford Odets' The Flowering Peach (their preferred choice) or The Bad Seed, their second choice. Edward Albee's Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? was selected for the 1963 Pulitzer Prize for Drama by that award's committee. However, the committee's selection was overruled by the award's advisory board, the trustees of Columbia University, because of the play's then-controversial use of profanity and sexual themes. Had Albee been awarded, he would be tied with Eugene O'Neill for the most Pulitzer Prizes for Drama (four).

Awards and nominations
Items marked with an asterisk (*) also won the Tony Award for Best Play or Best Musical

1910s

 * 1918: Why Marry? – Jesse Lynch Williams
 * 1919: no award

1920s

 * 1920: Beyond the Horizon – Eugene O'Neill
 * 1921: Miss Lulu Bett – Zona Gale
 * 1922: Anna Christie – Eugene O'Neill
 * 1923: Icebound – Owen Davis
 * 1924: Hell-Bent Fer Heaven – Hatcher Hughes
 * 1925: They Knew What They Wanted – Sidney Howard
 * 1926: Craig's Wife – George Kelly
 * 1927: In Abraham's Bosom – Paul Green
 * 1928: Strange Interlude – Eugene O'Neill
 * 1929: Street Scene – Elmer Rice

1930s

 * 1930: The Green Pastures – Marc Connelly
 * 1931: Alison's House – Susan Glaspell
 * 1932: Of Thee I Sing – George S. Kaufman, Morrie Ryskind, Ira Gershwin,
 * 1933: Both Your Houses – Maxwell Anderson
 * 1934: Men in White – Sidney Kingsley
 * 1935: The Old Maid – Zoë Akins
 * 1936: Idiot's Delight – Robert E. Sherwood
 * 1937: You Can't Take it with You – Moss Hart, George S. Kaufman
 * 1938: Our Town – Thornton Wilder
 * 1939: Abe Lincoln in Illinois – Robert E. Sherwood

1940s

 * 1940: The Time of Your Life – William Saroyan
 * 1941: There Shall Be No Night – Robert E. Sherwood
 * 1942: no award
 * 1943: The Skin of Our Teeth – Thornton Wilder
 * 1944: no award
 * 1945: Harvey – Mary Coyle Chase
 * 1946: State of the Union – Russel Crouse, Howard Lindsay
 * 1947: no award
 * 1948: A Streetcar Named Desire – Tennessee Williams
 * 1949: Death of a Salesman * – Arthur Miller

1950s

 * 1950: South Pacific * – Richard Rodgers, Oscar Hammerstein II, Joshua Logan
 * 1951: no award
 * 1952: The Shrike – Joseph Kramm
 * 1953: Picnic – William Inge
 * 1954: The Teahouse of the August Moon * – John Patrick
 * 1955: Cat on a Hot Tin Roof – Tennessee Williams
 * 1956: The Diary of Anne Frank * – Albert Hackett and Frances Goodrich
 * 1957: Long Day's Journey into Night * – Eugene O'Neill
 * 1958: Look Homeward, Angel – Ketti Frings
 * 1959: J.B. * – Archibald MacLeish

1960s

 * 1960: Fiorello! * – Jerome Weidman and George Abbott Jerry Bock, and Sheldon Harnick
 * 1961: All the Way Home – Tad Mosel
 * 1962: How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying * – Frank Loesser and Abe Burrows
 * 1963: no award
 * 1964: no award
 * 1965: The Subject Was Roses * – Frank D. Gilroy
 * 1966: no award
 * 1967: A Delicate Balance – Edward Albee
 * 1968: no award
 * 1969: The Great White Hope * – Howard Sackler

1970s

 * 1970: No Place to be Somebody – Charles Gordone
 * 1971: The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds – Paul Zindel
 * 1972: no award
 * 1973: That Championship Season * – Jason Miller
 * 1974: no award
 * 1975: Seascape – Edward Albee
 * 1976: A Chorus Line * – Michael Bennett, Nicholas Dante and James Kirkwood, Jr., Marvin Hamlisch and Edward Kleban
 * 1977: The Shadow Box * – Michael Cristofer
 * 1978: The Gin Game – Donald L. Coburn
 * 1979: Buried Child – Sam Shepard

1980s

 * 1980: Talley's Folly – Lanford Wilson
 * 1981: Crimes of the Heart – Beth Henley
 * 1982: A Soldier's Play – Charles Fuller
 * 1983: 'night, Mother – Marsha Norman
 * True West – Sam Shepard
 * 1984: Glengarry Glen Ross – David Mamet
 * Fool for Love – Sam Shepard
 * Painting Churches – Tina Howe
 * 1985: Sunday in the Park with George – James Lapine and Stephen Sondheim
 * The Dining Room – A. R. Gurney
 * The Gospel at Colonus – Lee Breuer, Bob Telson


 * 1986: no award
 * 1987: Fences * – August Wilson
 * Broadway Bound – Neil Simon
 * A Walk in the Woods – Lee Blessing
 * 1988: Driving Miss Daisy – Alfred Uhry
 * Boy's Life – Howard Korder
 * Talk Radio – Eric Bogosian
 * 1989: The Heidi Chronicles * – Wendy Wasserstein
 * Joe Turner's Come and Gone – August Wilson
 * M. Butterfly – David Henry Hwang

1990s

 * 1990: The Piano Lesson – August Wilson
 * And What of the Night? – María Irene Fornés
 * Love Letters – A. R. Gurney
 * 1991: Lost in Yonkers * – Neil Simon
 * Prelude to a Kiss – Craig Lucas
 * Six Degrees of Separation – John Guare
 * 1992: The Kentucky Cycle – Robert Schenkkan
 * Conversations with My Father – Herb Gardner
 * Miss Evers' Boys – David Feldshuh
 * Two Trains Running – August Wilson
 * Sight Unseen – Donald Margulies
 * 1993: Angels in America: Millennium Approaches * – Tony Kushner
 * The Destiny of Me – Larry Kramer
 * Fires in the Mirror – Anna Deavere Smith
 * 1994: Three Tall Women – Edward Albee
 * Keely and Du – Jane Martin
 * A Perfect Ganesh – Terrence McNally


 * 1995: The Young Man From Atlanta – Horton Foote
 * The Cryptogram – David Mamet
 * Seven Guitars – August Wilson
 * 1996: Rent * – Jonathan Larson
 * A Fair Country – Jon Robin Baitz
 * Old Wicked Songs – Jon Marans
 * 1997: no award
 * Collected Stories – Donald Margulies
 * The Last Night of Ballyhoo – Alfred Uhry
 * Pride's Crossing – Tina Howe
 * 1998: How I Learned to Drive – Paula Vogel
 * Freedomland – Amy Freed
 * Three Days of Rain – Richard Greenberg
 * 1999: Wit – Margaret Edson
 * Running Man – Cornelius Eady and Diedre Murray
 * Side Man * – Warren Leight

2000s

 * 2000: Dinner with Friends – Donald Margulies
 * In the Blood – Suzan-Lori Parks
 * King Hedley II – August Wilson
 * 2001: Proof * – David Auburn
 * The Play About the Baby – Edward Albee
 * The Waverly Gallery – Kenneth Lonergan
 * 2002: Topdog/Underdog – Suzan-Lori Parks
 * The Glory of Living – Rebecca Gilman
 * Yellowman – Dael Orlandersmith
 * 2003: Anna in the Tropics – Nilo Cruz
 * The Goat or Who Is Sylvia? * – Edward Albee
 * Take Me Out * – Richard Greenberg
 * 2004: I Am My Own Wife * – Doug Wright
 * Man from Nebraska – Tracy Letts
 * Omnium Gatherum – Theresa Rebeck and Alexandra Gersten-Vassilaros


 * 2005 Doubt: A Parable * – John Patrick Shanley
 * The Clean House – Sarah Ruhl
 * Thom Pain (based on nothing) – Will Eno
 * 2006: no award
 * Miss Witherspoon – Christopher Durang
 * The Intelligent Design of Jenny Chow – Rolin Jones
 * Red Light Winter – Adam Rapp
 * 2007: Rabbit Hole – David Lindsay-Abaire
 * Bulrusher – Eisa Davis
 * Orpheus X – Rinde Eckert
 * Elliot, a Soldier's Fugue – Quiara Alegría Hudes
 * 2008 August: Osage County * – Tracy Letts
 * Dying City – Christopher Shinn
 * Yellow Face – David Henry Hwang
 * 2009 Ruined – Lynn Nottage
 * Becky Shaw – Gina Gionfriddo
 * In the Heights * – Lin-Manuel Miranda and Quiara Alegría Hudes

2010s

 * 2010: Next to Normal – Tom Kitt and Brian Yorkey
 * Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo – Rajiv Joseph
 * The Elaborate Entrance of Chad Deity – Kristoffer Diaz
 * In the Next Room (or The Vibrator Play) – Sarah Ruhl
 * 2011: Clybourne Park – Bruce Norris
 * Detroit – Lisa D'Amour
 * A Free Man of Color – John Guare

Musicals
Eight musicals have won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama—-about one per decade from the 1930s to the 2000s. They are: George and Ira Gershwin's Of Thee I Sing (1932)¹, Rodgers and Hammerstein's South Pacific (1950), Bock & Harnick's Fiorello! (1960), Frank Loesser's How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying (1962), Marvin Hamlisch, Ed Kleban, James Kirkwood, and Nicholas Dante's A Chorus Line (1976), Stephen Sondheim's and James Lapine's Sunday in the Park with George (1985), Jonathan Larson's Rent (1996), and Quiara Alegría Hudes and Brian Yorkey and Tom Kitt's Next to Normal (2010).

Of Thee I Sing, Sunday in the Park with George, and Next to Normal are the only musicals that won the Pulitzer Prize and did not win the Tony Award for Best Musical. However, Of Thee I Sing opened when the Tony Awards did not exist.

The award goes to the playwright, although production of the play is also taken into account. In the case of a musical being awarded the prize, the composer, lyricist and book writer are generally the recipients. An exception to this was the first Pulitzer ever awarded to a musical: when Of Thee I Sing won in 1932, book authors George S. Kaufman and Morrie Ryskind, as well as lyricist Ira Gershwin, were cited as the winners, while composer George Gershwin's contribution was overlooked by the committee. The reason given was that the Pulitzer Prize for Drama is a dramatic award, and not a musical one. However, by 1950 the Pulitzer committee included composer Richard Rodgers as a recipient when South Pacific won the award, in recognition of music as an integral and important part of the theatrical experience.

¹Years given indicate the year that the Pulitzer Prize was won and not necessarily the year that musical had its New York opening.

Multiple winners
Only a few playwrights have been awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Drama more than once.


 * Eugene O'Neill won the prize four times—more than any other playwright. He won in 1920, 1922, 1928, and 1957.
 * George S. Kaufman won the award twice, once in 1932 and once in 1937. Both times he won the award for a collaborative work.
 * Robert E. Sherwood won the award in 1936, 1939, and 1941.
 * Thornton Wilder won in 1938 and 1943.
 * Tennessee Williams won the award in 1948 and 1955.
 * August Wilson won the award in 1987 and 1990.
 * Edward Albee won the award in 1967, 1975 and 1994. He is the last repeat winner to win, although August Wilson is the last playwright to become a repeat winner.