Liberation won the 2026 Tony Award for best play, making playwright Bess Wohl only the second American woman to win in the category and the first in close to 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 imagined group setting, amid infighting, pushes for progress and a radical reimagining of womanhood, as well as a reckoning of where that stands now. Wohl has said the plot was partly inspired by her mother, Lisa Cronin Wohl, who worked for Gloria Steinem’s Ms. Magazine.
“I really need first to thank my mom, who taught me to use my imagination. I need to thank my daughters, who love to remind me that I couldn’t have done it without them and their right,” Wohl said onstage.
With the win, Wohl is also the first woman to win a Tony Award for best play since 2009, when Yasmina Reza of France took home the award for God of Carnage. The last time an American woman won the award was in 1989, when Wendy Wasserstein took home the award for The Heidi Chronicles.
“Tonight, I want to honor her, I want to honor women everywhere who have the courage to use their voice, and all the girls out there speaking your truth and make a world be wise enough to listen,” Wohl said.
Liberation, directed by Whitney White, ran on Broadway from October through February and was well-reviewed, but did not pull in big audience numbers. It has since won the Pulitzer and announced a 2027 London run.
In total, Liberation was nominated for five Tony Awards, including best direction of a play, acting nominees for Betsy Aidem and Susannah Flood, who plays the narrator, and best costume design by Qween Jean (who did not win for Liberation, but won for Cats: The Jellicle Ball).
The play beat out the other contenders in the category, Giant, a play about Roald Dahl and antisemitism, which won the 2025 Olivier for best play during its London run and was seen as the stiffest competition, and Little Bear Ridge Road, about an estranged aunt and her nephew reconnecting, produced by Scott Rudin and Barry Diller. John Lithgow stars as Dahl. Laurie Metcalf and Micah Stock starred in Little Bear Ridge Road, which ran on Broadway last fall.
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