Tony Award for Best Original Score


The Tony Award for Best Original Score is the Tony Award given to the composers and lyricists of the best original score written for a musical or play in that year. The score consists of music and lyrics. To be eligible, a score must be written specifically for the theatre and must be original; compilations of non-theatrical music or compilations of earlier theatrical music are not eligible for consideration.

History

The award has undergone a number of minor changes. In 1947, 1950, 1951, and 1962, the award went to the composer only. Otherwise, the award has gone to the composer and lyricist for their combined contributions, except for 1971 when the two awards were split .
In only eight years have non-musical plays been nominated for Tony Awards in this category: Much Ado About Nothing in 1973, The Good Doctor in 1974, The Song of Jacob Zulu in 1993, Twelfth Night in 1999, Enron and Fences in 2010, Peter and the Starcatcher and One Man, Two Guvnors in 2012, Angels in America in 2018, and To Kill a Mockingbird in 2019.
In 2013, Cyndi Lauper became the first woman to win the award solo for Kinky Boots. In 2015, Lisa Kron and Jeanine Tesori became the first all-woman team to win the award for Fun Home.
Lin-Manuel Miranda is the youngest person to win the award; he was 28 when he won for In the Heights. Adolph Green is the oldest person to win the award; he was 76 when he won for The Will Rogers Follies. If T. S. Eliot were alive when he won for Cats, he would have been 94. Eliot is one of two people to receive the award posthumously, the other being Jonathan Larson, who won for Rent''. He would have been 36.

Winners and nominees

1940s

1950s

1960s

1970s

1980s

1990s

2000s

2010s

2020s

Award records

Multiple wins

; 6 Wins
; 3 Wins
; 2 Wins
; 11 Nominations
; 10 Nominations
; 9 Nominations
; 7 Nominations
; 5 Nominations
; 4 Nominations
; 3 Nominations
; 2 Nominations
Only seven women have won this award, four of whom won without male writing partners, and for only eight shows: