TheTony Award for Best Original Score is theTony Award given to thecomposers andlyricists of the best original score written for amusical orplay in that year. The score consists of music and/or 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.

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 (althoughStephen Sondheim won both, forCompany).

The only tie in this category occurred in 1993, whenFred Ebb &John Kander (Kiss of the Spider Woman) andPete Townshend (The Who's Tommy) shared the award.

In only ten 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 andFences in 2010;Peter and the Starcatcher andOne Man, Two Guvnors in 2012;Angels in America in 2018;To Kill a Mockingbird in 2019;A Christmas Carol,The Inheritance,The Rose Tattoo,Slave Play, andThe Sound Inside in 2020; andStereophonic in 2024. Because the Broadway season of 2019-2020 was shortened due to theCOVID-19 pandemic, only four musicals were eligible for Tony Awards; three werejukebox musicals and the fourth wasThe Lightning Thief, the only musical of the season with original music.The Lightning Thief was not nominated for any Tony Awards, meaning that every nominee in this category in 2020 was a play rather than a musical.

In 2013,Cyndi Lauper became the first woman to win the award solo forKinky Boots. In 2015,Lisa Kron andJeanine Tesori became the first all-woman team to win the award forFun Home.^[1]

Toby Marlow is the youngest person to win the award; he was 27 when he won in tandem withLucy Moss forSix.Adolph Green is the oldest person to win the award; he was 76 when he won forThe Will Rogers Follies. IfT. S. Eliot were alive when he won forCats, he would have been 94. Eliot is one of two people to receive the award posthumously, the other beingJonathan Larson, who won forRent. He would have been 36.

Only nine women have won this award, six of whom won without male writing partners, and for eleven shows:

• Betty Comden –Hallelujah, Baby! (1968),On the Twentieth Century (1978), andThe Will Rogers Follies (1991), becoming the first woman to win this Tony multiple times.
• Lynn Ahrens –Ragtime (1998)
• Lisa Lambert –The Drowsy Chaperone (2006)
• Cyndi Lauper –Kinky Boots (2013), becoming the first woman to win this Tony without a writing partner
• Jeanine Tesori –Fun Home (2015) andKimberly Akimbo (2023)
• Lisa Kron –Fun Home (2015), Kron and Jeanine Tesori becoming the first all-female songwriting team (music and lyrics) to win this Tony.
• Anaïs Mitchell –Hadestown (2019)
• Lucy Moss –Six (2022)
• Shaina Taub -Suffs (2024)

• 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

• Official Tony Awards website
• Internet Broadway Database Awards

• Tony Awards
• Awards established in 1947
• Songwriting awards
• 1947 establishments in the United States

• Articles with short description
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