Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Book of a Musical
The Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Book of a Musical is an annual award presented by Drama Desk in recognition of achievements in the theatre among Broadway, Off Broadway and Off-Off Broadway productions. For two years, in addition to the award for Outstanding Book, an award was presented to the writers of the Most Promising Book. Recipients of this honor were Melvin Van Peebles for Ain't Supposed to Die a Natural Death in 1972 and Ron House and Diz White for El Grande de Coco-Cola in 1973.
† – indicates the book won the Tony Award
‡ – indicates the book was also nominated for the Tony Award1970s
1980s
1990s
2000s
2010s
2020s
Multiple wins
; 3 wins
; 2 wins
; 5 nominations
; 4 nominations
; 3 nominations
- Joe DiPietro
- Michael John LaChiusa
- Dick Scanlan
- John Weidman
- Hugh Wheeler
- Alfred Uhry
; 2 nominations
- Douglas Carter Beane
- Chad Beguelin
- Scott Brown
- Harvey Fierstein
- John Guare
- Rupert Holmes
- Anthony King
- Jonathan Larson
- Warren Leight
- Jim Lewis
- Marsha Norman
- Bob Martin
- Peter Stone
- Jeff Whitty
- Doug Wright