The Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Featured Actor in a Play is presented by the Drama Desk, a committee of New York City theatre critics, writers, and editors. It honors performances by actors in supporting roles in productions staged on Broadway, off-Broadway, off-off-Broadway, and for legitimate not-for-profit theaters.
It was not until the 21st Annual Drama Desk Awards in 1975 that a specific category for Outstanding Featured Actor in a Play was created. That year's recipient was Frank Langella in Seascape, who won over Louis Beachner in The National Health, Larry Blyden in Absurd Person Singular, David Dukes in Love for Love and Rules of the Game, Philip Locke in Sherlock Holmes, and Richard Williams in Black Picture Show.
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“By whatever means it is accomplished, the prime business of a play is to arouse the passions of its audience so that by the route of passion may be opened up new relationships between a man and men, and between men and Man. Drama is akin to the other inventions of man in that it ought to help us to know more, and not merely to spend our feelings.”
—Arthur Miller (b. 1915)
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—Marya McLaughlin, U.S. television newswoman. As quoted in Women in Television News, ch. 3, by Judith S. Gelfman (1976)
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—Robert Graves (1895–1985)
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—Jaroslav Pelikan (b. 1932)
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—Charles Dickens (1812–1870)
“Come children, let us shut up the box and the puppets, for our play is played out.”
—William Makepeace Thackeray (1811–1863)