ALFRED UHRY is distinguished as the only American playwright to have won a Pulitzer Prize, an Academy Award and two Tony Awards. A 1958 graduate of Brown University, he began his professional career as a lyric writer under contract to the late Frank Loesser. He made his Broadway debut in 1968 with HERE’S WHERE I BELONG, which ran for one night. He had better luck with THE ROBBER BRIDEGROOM in 1976, which won him his first Tony nomination.
His first play was DRIVING MISS DAISY, which began life at the 74 seat upstairs theatre at Playwrights Horizons in 1987 and went on to run for three years and won the Pulitzer Prize in 1988, The film version, starring Morgan Freeman and Jessica Tandy, won the Academy Award as best film of 1989 and gained Uhry his own Oscar for best screenplay.
His next two Broadway outings won him Tony Awards. – THE LAST NIGHT OF BALLYHOO, best play of 1997. And PARADE, best book of a musical in 1999. The 2023 revival of PARADE won the Tony Award for best revival of a musical and launched its American nation tour in 2025.
In 2014 he was inducted into both The Theatre Hall Of Fame and the Georgia Writers Hall of Fame. In 2025 , Alfred was the recipient of the Lifetime Achievement Award from the National Jewish Theater Foundation.
