release It won the 2026 Tony Award for Best Play, making playwright Bess Wall the second American woman to win the category and the first in nearly 40 years.
The play, about a feminist group meeting in Ohio in the 1970s, won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama last month. The play follows a narrator describing her mother’s creation of the group and inserting herself into the group’s imagined environment, amidst infighting, the push for progress and a radical reimagining of femininity, as well as a reckoning with the current situation. Wall said the story was partly inspired by her mother, Lisa Cronin Wall, who worked for Gloria Steinem. Ms. Magazine.
“First I really need to thank my mom, who taught me to use my imagination. I want to thank my daughters, who like to remind me that I couldn’t have done this without them and without them,” Wall said on stage.
With this win, Wall became the first woman to win the Tony Award for Best Play since 2009, when Frenchwoman Yasmina Reda received the award for her role in the play. God of carnage. The last time an American woman won the award was in 1989, when Wendy Wasserstein received the award. Heidi Records.
“Tonight, I want to honor her, I want to honor women everywhere who have the courage to use their voices, and all the girls out there speaking their truth and making the world wise enough to listen,” Wall said.
releaseThe film, directed by Whitney White, ran on Broadway from October through February to good reviews, but did not attract large audiences. She has since won a Pulitzer Prize and announced a run in London in 2027.
In total, release It was nominated for five Tony Awards, including Best Directing of a Play, acting nominees for Betsy Aydem and Susannah Flood, who plays the narrator, and Best Costume Design for Quinn Jane (who did not win releaseBut he won Cats: Jellicle Ball).
The play beat out the other contenders in this category, gianta play about Roald Dahl and anti-Semitism, which won the 2025 Olivier Award for Best Play during its London run and was seen as a tough contender, and Little Bear Ridge Roadabout the reconnection between an estranged aunt and her nephew, produced by Scott Rudin and Barry Diller. John Lithgow plays Dahl. Laurie Metcalf and Mika Stock starred Little Bear Ridge RoadWhich premiered on Broadway last fall.
