First US Woman Wins Best Play Tony in Decades

Bess Wohl's "Liberation" has been honored with the Tony Award for Best Play, marking a historic win. Wohl is the first American woman to receive this award in the category since Wendy Wasserstein won for "The Heidi Chronicles" in 1989. "Liberation" is a poignant memory play that intertwines the early 1970s with the present day.

The narrative follows a young journalist forming a consciousness-raising group in the 1970s, and her daughter's modern-day efforts to understand her mother's legacy. Inspired partly by Wohl's mother, a writer for Ms. Magazine, the play offers a deeply personal yet sweeping examination of feminism's gains and losses.

The production, originally staged by the Roundabout Theater Company before its Broadway run, triumphed over other nominated plays including "Giant" and "The Balusters."