By Ben Schachne
With the 2026 Tony Awards concluded, another production has earned the Tony Award for Best Revival of a Play, joining a long tradition of bringing celebrated works back to or finally debuting on the Broadway stage. The category recognizes productions that offer fresh interpretations of established plays, whether through innovative direction, contemporary perspectives, or extraordinary performances. Over the past decade, these revivals have revisited some of Broadway’s most defining works while demonstrating how their stories can continue to resonate with modern audiences. Here is a look back at the Best Revival of a Play winners from the 2016–2026 Tony Awards.
2026: Death of a Salesman
Death of a Salesman is the most recent winner of the Tony Award for Best Revival of a Play and is one of the most reinventive and Tony Award-winning productions of the season. Written by Arthur Miller, the classic play follows Willy Loman, an aging 63-year-old traveling salesman as he faces mental decline, professional failure, and fractured family relationships in his efforts to achieve the American Dream. The sixth revival since its 1949 premiere, this production strips away every façade and convention for a dark and gritty abstraction of the material, setting the play within an expansive warehouse garage space to focus on the emotionally powerful performances from Nathan Lane and Laurie Metcalff.
2025: Eureka Day
Eureka Day opened in the 2024–2025 season alongside six other play revivals, standing out for its brilliant and timely exploration of community, public health, and the difficulty of agreement. Written by Jonathan Spector, the play follows the board of a progressive California private school as a mumps outbreak forces its members to confront opposing views on vaccines and individual freedom. Originating Off-Broadway in 2019, the Broadway production brought Spector’s acclaimed comedy to a wider audience with an ensemble-driven performance that balanced humor and tension while highlighting the complexities of navigating deeply divided communities.
2024: Appropriate
Appropriate opened in the 2023–2024 season alongside four other play revivals, bringing the darkly comedic family drama to Broadway that confronts buried histories and generational prejudice. Written by Branden Jacobs-Jenkins, the play follows three siblings who return to their late father’s Arkansas home to settle his estate, only to uncover disturbing objects that force them to confront their family’s past. Originally produced Off-Broadway in 2014, the Broadway production was deemed eligible for the revival category, with Sarah Paulson earning the Tony Award for Best Actress for her performance as Toni Lafayette.
2023: Topdog/Underdog
Topdog/Underdog opened in the 2022–2023 season alongside five other play revivals, bringing the Pulitzer Prize-winning drama back to Broadway for its 20th anniversary. Written by Suzan-Lori Parks, the tragicomedy follows two estranged brothers, Lincoln and Booth, whose troubled relationship and obsession with the street con game three-card monte force them to confront their complicated family history and identities. The second Broadway production since its 2002 premiere, the revival was praised for its intimate staging and the intense chemistry between Yahya Abdul-Mateen II and Corey Hawkins, whose performances captured the brothers’ volatile relationship, competing ambitions, and deep-rooted resentment.
2022: Take Me Out
Take Me Out opened in the 2021–2022 season alongside eight other play revivals, distinguished by the return of Scott Ellis’s stripped-down staging and landing in an era where the core themes of identity, race, and homophobia in sports remained profoundly relevant. Written by Richard Greenberg, the play follows Darren Lemming, a biracial star center fielder who comes out as gay, forcing his teammates to confront their own assumptions about race, masculinity, and sexuality as their championship season begins to unravel. The first Broadway revival since its 2003 premiere, the production was celebrated for its ensemble performances and intimate locker-room setting, with Jesse Tyler Ferguson winning the Tony Award for Featured Actor for his portrayal of Mason Marzac.
2020/2021: A Soldier’s Play
A Soldier’s Play opened in the 2019–2020 season alongside four other play revivals, bringing the Pulitzer Prize-winning play to Broadway for the first time since its star-studded Off-Broadway premiere in 1981. Written by Charles Fuller, the play follows Captain Richard Davenport as he investigates the murder of Sergeant Vernon Waters on a segregated Louisiana Army base in 1944, gradually uncovering tensions surrounding race, identity, and military service. The production featured a stark barracks-inspired set, a commanding ensemble, and standout performances from David Alan Grier and Blair Underwood, with Grier winning the Tony Award for Featured Actor.
2019: The Boys in the Band
The Boys in the Band opened in the 2018–2019 season alongside six other play revivals, marking the play’s 50th anniversary with an all-openly gay cast. Written by Mart Crowley, the play follows a group of gay men who gather for a birthday party in a Manhattan apartment, where old tensions and insecurities gradually surface over the course of one night. The first Broadway production since its 1968 Off-Broadway premiere, the revival recontextualized the play as a historical period piece, honoring the struggles of mid-century queer men while making the story accessible to modern audiences.
2018: Angels in America
Angels in America opened in the 2017–2018 season alongside nine other play revivals, introducing the revolutionary work to a new generation, brought together by Marianne Elliott’s ambitious staging, bold neon designs, and visceral physical theater to handle the epic seven-and-a-half-hour two-part structure. Written by Tony Kushner, the epic follows several New Yorkers during the AIDS crisis of the 1980s as their lives intersect through love, politics, religion, and questions of identity. The first Broadway revival since its 1993 premiere, the production starred Andrew Garfield and Nathan Lane, who both won Tony Awards for their performances as Prior Walter and Roy Cohn.
2017: Jitney
Jitney opened in the 2016–2017 season alongside eight other play revivals, finally completing the Broadway presentation of August Wilson’s ten-play American Century Cycle. Set in a Pittsburgh jitney station in 1977, the play centers on a group of Black cab drivers whose conversations about work, family, race, and generational conflict reveal the changing world around them. The play’s Broadway debut after its 2000 Off-Broadway run and almost 40 years after being written, the historic production was defined by its detailed period setting, tightly connected ensemble, and original music by Bill Sims Jr which helped create a vivid portrait of the community.
2016: A View from the Bridge
A View from the Bridge opened in the 2015–2016 season alongside ten other play revivals, delivering a stripped-down, highly abstract interpretation of the classic to highlight the raw, destructive nature of obsession. Written by Arthur Miller, the play follows Eddie Carbone, a Sicilian-American longshoreman whose growing obsession with his niece Catherine and her relationship with an immigrant creates a devastating conflict within his family and community. The fourth Broadway revival since its 1955 premiere, this production was led by Mark Strong as Eddie Carbone, with a minimalist boxing ring or cage-like set that physicalized how Eddie was trapped by his own repressed desires.