Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Director of a Play

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| John Dexter

| Equus

| Sherlock Holmes

| Sizwe Banzi Is Dead

| Goodtime Charlie

| Women Behind Bars

| Same Time, Next Year

| Ellis Rabb

| The Royal Family

| Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

| Dual Bill

| Streamers

| They Knew What They Wanted

| Lamppost Reunion

| Mike Nichols

| Comedians

| Alan Schneider

| A Texas Trilogy

| The New York Idea

| G.R. Point

| American Buffalo

| For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow Is Enuf

| Melvin Bernhardt

| Da

| Dracula

| The Dybbuk

| The Gin Game

| Uncommon Women

| K

| Jack Hofsiss

| The Elephant Man

| Bedroom Farce

| Wings

| Man and Superman

| Nevis Mt. Dew

| The Miracle Worker

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| Vivian Matalon

| Morning's at Seven

| Mecca

| Children of a Lesser God

| Strider

| Talley's Folly

| Loose Ends

| Peter Hall

| Amadeus

| Crimes of the Heart

| Mass Appeal

| The Winslow Boy

| Tommy Tune

| Cloud Nine

| "Master Harold"...and the Boys

| Potsdam Quartet

| Entertaining Mr Sloane

| A Soldier's Play

| Trevor Nunn

| All's Well That Ends Well

| Extremities

| Third Street

| Present Laughter

| The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial

| True West

| Michael Blakemore

| Noises Off

| A Private View

| Isn't It Romantic

| And a Nightingale Sang

| Glengarry Glen Ross

| The Real Thing

| John Malkovich

| Balm in Gilead

| Digby

| As Is

| Biloxi Blues

| Found a Peanut

| rowspan="2"| Jerry Zaks

| The Marriage of Bette & Boo

| The House of Blue Leaves

| Hamlet

| Long Day's Journey into Night

| Lemon Sky

| Orphans

| It's Only a Play

| Howard Davies

| Les Liaisons Dangereuses

| The Common Pursuit

| Driving Miss Daisy

| Fences

| Coastal Disturbances

| Broadway Bound

| John Dexter

| M. Butterfly

| Boys' Life

| Woman in Mind

| Speed-the-Plow

| Joe Turner's Come and Gone

| Jerry Zaks

| Lend Me a Tenor

| Shirley Valentine

| Aristocrats

| The Cocktail Hour

| Reckless

| The Heidi Chronicles

! style="width:10%;"| Year

! style="width:30%;"| Director

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| Frank Galati

| The Grapes of Wrath

| Some Americans Abroad

| The Art of Success

| Prelude to a Kiss

| The Piano Lesson

| Jerry Zaks

| Six Degrees of Separation

| Machinal

| La Bête

| Hamlet

| Patrick Mason

| Dancing at Lughnasa

| 'Tis Pity She's a Whore

| Sight Unseen

| Search and Destroy

| Mad Forest

| George C. Wolfe

| Angels in America: Millennium Approaches

| Jeffrey

| As You Like It

| Les Atrides

| The Sisters Rosensweig

| Stephen Daldry

| An Inspector Calls

| In the Summer House

| Medea

| The Lights

| Arabian Nights

| Gerald Gutierrez

| The Heiress

| As You Like It

| Iphigenia and Other Daughters

| Having Our Say

| Love! Valour! Compassion!

| Indiscretions

| Gerald Gutierrez

| A Delicate Balance

| The Monogamist

| The Grey Zone

| A Midsummer Night's Dream

| Seven Guitars

| The Tempest

| Mark Brokaw

| How I Learned to Drive

| The Seven Streams of the River Ota

| Nine Armenians

| The Waste Land

| The Skriker

| rowspan="2"| Michael Mayer

| A View from the Bridge

| Side Man

| Goose-Pimples

| The American Clock

| The Beauty Queen of Leenane

| Mizlansky/Zilinsky or 'Schmucks'

| The Chairs

| Trevor Nunn

| Not About Nightingales

| Wit

| The Iceman Cometh

| Death of a Salesman

| Closer

| Betty's Summer Vacation

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| Michael Blakemore

| Copenhagen

| The Cider House Rules (Part One)

| Dirty Blonde

| Uncle Vanya

| Jitney

| Dinner with Friends

| Jack O'Brien

| The Invention of Love

| Lobby Hero

| Dogeaters

| Jesus Hopped the 'A' Train

| Richard II

| The Unexpected Man

| Mary Zimmerman

| Metamorphoses

| Private Lives

| The Crucible

| The Voice of the Turtle

| The Shape of Things

| Cymbeline

| Robert Falls

| Long Day's Journey into Night

| Our Lady of 121st Street

| Take Me Out

| Twelfth Night

| Medea

| Jack O'Brien

| Henry IV

| Moby Dick

| Bug

| A Midsummer Night's Dream

| I Am My Own Wife

| A Raisin in the Sun

| Doug Hughes

| Doubt

| Frankenstein

| Hurlyburly

| Twelve Angry Men

| Rose Rage

| Glengarry Glen Ross

| Nicholas Hytner

| The History Boys

| Private Fears in Public Places

| Agamemnon

| Stuff Happens

| Peer Gynt

| The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial

| Jack O'Brien

| The Coast of Utopia

| Twelfth Night

| Frost/Nixon

| Inherit the Wind

| The Hairy Ape

| Marco Millions

| Anna D. Shapiro

| August: Osage County

| Horizon

| From Up Here

| The Dining Room

| Boeing-Boeing

| Happy Days

| Matthew Warchus

| The Norman Conquests

| Blasted

| Blithe Spirit

| The Cripple of Inishmaan

| reasons to be pretty

| Ruined

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! style="width:30%;"| Director

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| Michael Grandage

| Red

| So Help Me God!

| The Boys in the Band

| Circle Mirror Transformation

| Hamlet

| A Lie of the Mind

| Joel Grey and George C. Wolfe

| The Normal Heart

| A Small Fire

| Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo

| A Bright New Boise

| The Merchant of Venice

| Baby Universe

| Mike Nichols

| Death of a Salesman

| By the Way, Meet Vera Stark

| Tribes

| These Seven Sicknesses

| Richard III

| Unnatural Acts

| Pam MacKinnon

| Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

| The Good Person of Szechwan

| Uncle Vanya

| Restoration Comedy

| The Assembled Parties

| The Piano Lesson

| Tim Carroll

| Twelfth Night

| A Christmas Carol

| Family Furniture

| All the Way

| Domesticated

| A Midsummer Night's Dream

| Marianne Elliott

| The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time

| Wolf Hall Parts One & Two

| You Got Older

| The Wayside Motor Inn

| Between Riverside and Crazy

| Deliverance

| Let the Right One In

| Ivo van Hove

| A View from the Bridge

| The Royale

| John

| King Charles III

| The Humans

| Women Without Men

|Ruben Santiago-Hudson

|Jitney

|A Life

|What Did You Expect? and Women of a Certain Age

|The Little Foxes

|John Tiffany

|Harry Potter and the Cursed Child

|Angels in America

|People, Places and Things

|Three Tall Women

|Miles for Mary

|Yerma

|Sam Mendes

|The Ferryman

|Fairview

|The Jungle

|Usual Girls

|Plano

|Life Sucks

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! style="width:30%;"| Director

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| Stephen Daldry

| The Inheritance

| Coal Country

| Halfway Bitches Go Straight to Heaven

| Is This A Room

| Mac Beth

| Rebecca Frecknall

| Sanctuary City

| English

| Merry Wives

| Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992

| On Sugarland

| Max Webster

| Life of Pi

| On That Day in Amsterdam

| Public Obscenities

| Death of a Salesman

| Peter Pan Goes Wrong

| Love

| Daniel Aukin

| Stereophonic

|The Hunt

| Purlie Victorious

| Appropriate

|Philadelphia, Here I Come!