June 19, 2008

SCHOOL OF COMMUNICATION HONORS ITS TONY AWARD WINNERS

EVANSTON, Ill. --- The School of Communication honored its own Tony-winning faculty and alumni at the Tony Award Winners Salute cosponsored by the Northwestern Alumni Association on June 19. University President Henry Bienen attended the event at the McCormick Tribune Center to honor Northwestern University faculty members Anna Shapiro and Todd Rosenthal, who were each presented with a Tony Award June 15 for work on the drama “August: Osage County” by Tracy Letts.

Shapiro won for Best Direction of a Play and Rosenthal won for Best Scenic Design of a Play. In addition, Northwestern School of Communication alumna Barbara Gaines, as artistic director of Chicago Shakespeare Theater, was awarded the 2008 Regional Theatre Tony Award.

President Bienen, also a member of the executive committee of Steppenwolf Theatre, attended the Salute and told those attending that the Tony wins were “doubly thrilling” for him, and that he was exceedingly proud of Shapiro’s and Rosenthal’s accomplishments. “We are the great place for theater in the country,” Bienen said.

University President Henry Bienen congratulates
Todd Rosenthal, Anna Shapiro and Ana Kuzmanic

Provost Daniel Linzer and School of Communication Dean Barbara O’Keefe also attended the Salute. Dean O’Keefe marveled at the number of Northwestern alumni associated with this year’s Tony Awards. “Every time Whoopi Goldberg (The 2008 Tony host) wasn’t on the stage by herself, there was a Northwestern student, alum or faculty member on stage,” she said.

The Tonys were a particularly big night for “August: Osage County,” which also earned playwright Letts a Tony for Best Play. Tony-nominated for seven awards, the play about a dysfunctional Oklahoma family altogether earned five 2008 Tonys.

The 2008 Tonys “also marked significant achievement for Northwestern,” points out Dean O’Keefe. Alumna Martha Lavey is artistic director of Chicago’s Steppenwolf Theatre, which premiered “August: Osage County.” And 2008 Tony Award-winning playwright Letts has taught in the School of Communication.

In 2002, performance studies professor and alumna Mary Zimmerman -- a 1998 MacArthur “genius” award winner -- won a Tony for Best Direction of a Play for “Metamorphoses,” which premiered at Northwestern. Associate Professor Daniel Ostling was Tony-nominated for Best Scenic Design for the same play.

That year three School of Communication alumni were honored with Tony nominations -- Gregg Edelman (“Into the Woods”) and Brian D’Arcy James (“Sweet Smell of Success”) for Best Performance by a Featured Actor in a Musical, and Spencer Kayden for Best Performance by a Featured Actress in a Musical (“Urinetown”).

Shapiro and Rosenthal as well as Ana Kuzmanic, a Northwestern assistant professor of theatre and School of Communication alumna who collaborated on “August’s” costume design, attended the Salute and answered questions from the audience.

Shapiro, now the second American woman to win a Tony for Best Direction of a Play (Zimmerman was the first) told those attending the Salute that she would be directing “August: Osage County” at London's Royal National Theatre in the fall, but she requested the Theatre work around her teaching schedule.

"They thought I was pregnant," she said. "They didn't quite understand we all have lives in Chicago, and that procreation is not the issue just because I'm a woman."

The play will also return to the United States next year for a national tour that will include a stop in Chicago, which is great news for those who did not see the play in its initial run at Steppenwolf last summer.

Media Coverage

NBC5.com, June 16: Tony Wins Put Chicago On Theater Map