Tracy Letts Wins Best Actor, Cicely Tyson Wins Best Actress In A Play Tony Award

NEW YORK (CBSNewYork/AP) -- Tracy Letts, who won a Tony Award as a playwright, now has one as an actor.

Letts takes home the trophy for best performance by an actor in a play for playing George, one-half of the bickering couple at the heart of Edward Albee's "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?"

He beat out Nathan Lane, Tom Hanks, David Hyde Pierce and Tom Sturridge.

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Letts, a member of the Steppenwolf Theatre Co. ensemble since 2002, burst to worldwide fame when his "August: Osage County" won the Pulitzer and five Tonys, including the best play trophy in 2008.

His other plays include "Man from Nebraska," a Pulitzer finalist in 2004, "Killer Joe," "Superior Donuts" and "Bug." His previous acting credits include "Betrayal," "The Pillowman," "Homebody/Kabul" and "Glengarry Glen Ross."

Cicely Tyson, who returned to Broadway this season for the first time in 30 years, has taken home the Tony Award for best leading actress in a play.

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In Horton Foote's "The Trip to Bountiful," Tyson plays a widow in 1953 whose only desire is to revisit her old home in Bountiful and recapture purpose she lost when she left for Houston.

Tyson, 88, beat out Laurie Metcalf, Amy Morton, Kristine Nielsen and Holland Taylor.

Tyson was nominated for an Oscar for her role in "Sounder" in 1972. Other film credits include "Fried Green Tomatoes," "Bustin' Loose" and "Jefferson in Paris."

She won Emmys for "The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman" and "Oldest Living Confederate Widow Tells All." She was also nominated for her role in the miniseries "Roots."