Laurie Metcalf Ties Tony Awards Record with Victory for ‘Death of a Salesman’
David Buchanan
At the 2026 Tony Awards last night, Laurie Metcalf tied a Tony Awards record in the Featured Actress in a Play category with her win for Death of a Salesman.
Metcalf received her second Featured Actress award for her distinctive performance as Linda Loman, an iconic role in the American theatrical canon. She now joins a list of seven other actresses who have won two times in this category; surprisingly, across almost eighty years of history, no one has won three. See below for the complete list of performers with two Best Featured Actress in a Play wins.
Although Metcalf’s victory seemed all but guaranteed heading into last night’s ceremony, the role of Linda Loman hasn’t historically performed well at the Tonys in the 77 years since the play debuted.
Metcalf is now the seventh performer to tackle the character, following in the footsteps of Mildred Dunnock in the original 1949 production, Teresa Wright in 1975, Kate Reid in 1984, Elizabeth Franz in 1999, Linda Emond in 2012, and Sharon D Clarke in 2023. From this list of seven, only Franz and Emond had previously received nominations, and before Metcalf, only Franz had ever won. Shockingly, Franz’s costar Brian Dennehy remains the only actor to ever win for playing Willy Loman.
Not only does Metcalf’s win last night tie her with seven other exemplary thespians for the most victories in the Featured Actress category, but she leapfrogs to second place amongst the most-awarded overall out of that prestigious club. In addition to her featured win for Death of a Salesman, she previously won in the category for Three Tall Women in 2018 — a production also directed by Joe Mantello — and an earlier Best Actress in a Play prize for A Doll’s House, Part 2 in 2017, bringing her lifetime tally to three Tonys.
Unsurprisingly, the winningest of all from the list of two-time Featured Actress winners is none other than Audra McDonald, also the most awarded Broadway actress in Tony Awards history. She won featured twice for Master Class (1996) and A Raisin in the Sun (2004), and has four other victories for Carousel (1994), Ragtime (1998), The Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess (2012), and Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar & Grill (2014), notching at least one win in all four acting categories.
In my exclusive interview with Metcalf for Gold Derby, the actress spoke at length about re-encountering Arthur Miller’s American tragedy on the page to prepare for this production, not having read it since high school and having avoided seeing any staging of the piece in the hopes of one day playing Linda:
“It was like I had never read it before, because as a kid, I don’t know who you’re really identifying with… For me, it was just like reading a fresh play that was written, you know, last week… I have to keep reminding myself that in 1950, how shocking Death of a Salesman was. Some of the things, the way the boys talked to each other about women, the things that Willy is teaching his sons, him even just being caught [by Biff] in the hotel room [with The Woman], these things had packed a bigger wallop back then, I’m sure.”
Two-Time Tony Winners in the Featured Actress in a Play Category:
Judith Ivey — Steaming (1983) and Hurlyburly (1985)
Swoosie Kurtz — Fifth of July (1981) and The House of Blue Leaves
(1986)
Christine Baranski — The Real Thing (1984) and Rumors (1989)
Frances Sternhagen — The Good Doctor (1974) and The Heiress
(1995)
Audra McDonald — Master Class (1996) and A Raisin in the Sun
(2004)
Judith Light — Other Desert Cities (2012) and The Assembled Parties
(2013)
Kara Young — Purlie Victorious (2024) and Purpose (2025)
Laurie Metcalf — Three Tall Women (2018) and Death of a Salesman
(2026)