Tony Award for Best Original Score facts for kids

The Tony Award for Best Original Score is a special prize given out at the Tony Awards. It celebrates the best new music and lyrics written for a musical or play each year. The "score" includes all the songs and background music. To win, the music and lyrics must be brand new and created just for the show. They can't be old songs or music from other places.

About the Award

This award honors the talented people who write the songs and music for Broadway shows. These people are called composers (who write the music) and lyricists (who write the words to the songs). Sometimes, one person does both!

Award History and Changes

The rules for this award have changed a little over the years. In some early years, only the composer won. Most of the time, both the composer and lyricist win together. In 1971, the awards for music and lyrics were given separately, but Stephen Sondheim won both for his musical Company.

There has only been one tie in this category. In 1993, Fred Ebb & John Kander won for Kiss of the Spider Woman and Pete Townshend also won for The Who's Tommy. They both shared the award!

Usually, this award goes to musicals. But sometimes, plays that aren't musicals have special original music written for them. These plays can also be nominated! For example, Much Ado About Nothing was nominated in 1973, and Peter and the Starcatcher was nominated in 2012. In 2020, because of the COVID-19 pandemic, many musicals couldn't open. This meant that all the shows nominated for Best Original Score that year were plays, which was very unusual!

Trailblazing Winners

Many amazing people have won this award. In 2013, Cyndi Lauper made history as the first woman to win the award all by herself for Kinky Boots. Then, in 2015, Lisa Kron and Jeanine Tesori became the first team of only women to win for their musical Fun Home.

The youngest person to win this award is Toby Marlow, who was 27 when he won with Lucy Moss for Six. The oldest winner was Adolph Green, who was 76 when he won for The Will Rogers Follies. Sometimes, people even win after they have passed away. T. S. Eliot won for Cats, and Jonathan Larson won for Rent.

Winners and Nominees by Year

     indicates the winner

1940s and 1950s Highlights

1960s Highlights

1970s Highlights

1980s Highlights

1990s Highlights

2000s Highlights

2010s Highlights

2020s Highlights

Award Records

Some composers and lyricists have won or been nominated many times!

Multiple Wins

• 6 Wins
  • Stephen Sondheim (won 3 times in a row!)
• 3 Wins
  • Cy Coleman (won 2 times in a row!)
  • Betty Comden
  • Fred Ebb
  • Adolph Green
  • John Kander
  • Andrew Lloyd Webber
• 2 Wins
  • Jason Robert Brown
  • Jerry Herman
  • Robert Lopez
  • Lin-Manuel Miranda
  • Tim Rice
  • Richard Rodgers
  • Jeanine Tesori
  • Maury Yeston

Multiple Nominations

• 11 Nominations
  • Fred Ebb
  • John Kander
  • Andrew Lloyd Webber
• 10 Nominations
  • Stephen Sondheim
• 9 Nominations
  • Cy Coleman
• 7 Nominations
  • Tim Rice
• 6 Nominations
  • Jeanine Tesori
  • David Yazbek
• 5 Nominations
  • Don Black
  • Jerry Herman
  • Richard Maltby Jr.
  • Alan Menken
  • Stephen Schwartz

Female Winners

It's important to celebrate the women who have won this award! Nine women have won, and six of them won without male writing partners. They have won for a total of eleven shows:

• Betty Comden – She won for Hallelujah, Baby! (1968), On the Twentieth Century (1978), and The Will Rogers Follies (1991). She was the first woman to win this Tony more than once.
• Lynn Ahrens – Won for Ragtime (1998).
• Lisa Lambert – Won for The Drowsy Chaperone (2006).
• Cyndi Lauper – Won for Kinky Boots (2013). She was the first woman to win this Tony all by herself.
• Jeanine Tesori – Won for Fun Home (2015) and Kimberly Akimbo (2023).
• Lisa Kron – Won for Fun Home (2015). She and Jeanine Tesori were the first all-female team (music and lyrics) to win this Tony.
• Anaïs Mitchell – Won for Hadestown (2019).
• Lucy Moss – Won for Six (2022).
• Shaina Taub - Won for Suffs (2024).

See also

In Spanish: Anexo:Premio Tony a la mejor banda sonora original para niños

• Tony Award for Best Book of a Musical
• Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Music
• Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Music in a Play
• Laurence Olivier Award for Best Original Score or New Orchestrations
• List of Tony Award-nominated productions