For Immediate Release
Toni Robin                
San Diego Performing Arts League                      

619.238.0700 ext. 14                                                                      

www.sandiegoperforms.com                                                          

 

Give My Regards to Broadway, I’ll be in San Diego This Year!

San Diegans Get Tony Award Fever

 

The 2003 theatre season firmly established San Diego’s reputation as a breeding ground for new work and an extraordinary place to see live theatre. The recent Tony Awards nominations and awards reaffirmed San Diego’s reputation as “the newest cultural mecca in the U.S.”  San Diego can hold its rightful place as one of the most thriving and creative theatre towns in the nation. The silver medallion of the masks of comedy and tragedy, known as the American Theatre Wing's Tony Award®, is theatre's most prestigious and coveted prize. After this year’s annual Broadway theatre love-fest, San Diego is gloriously overflowing with Tony’s!

  • I Am My Own Wife, which launched La Jolla Playhouse’s Page to Stage program, was nominated for three Tony Awards and won two: Best Performance by a Leading Actor in a Play, UCSD graduate Jefferson Mays, and Best Play, Doug Wright
    §         A nomination was also received for Best Direction of a Play, Moises Kaufman.
  • The Old Globe’s Artistic Director Jack O’Brien won a 2004 Tony Award for his direction of the acclaimed Broadway production of Henry IV at Lincoln Center Theatre. The play also won for Best Revival of a Play. This is O’Brien’s second consecutive win (the sixth nomination of his career), having won the Tony in 2003 for his direction of the mega-hit musical Hairspray. Jack saluted the “glorious Globe in San Diego,” in his internationally televised acceptance speech. Talk about raising the profile of San Diego’s performing arts!                                         
  • Assassins, Stephen Sondheim’s controversial musical included a nomination for UCSD graduate and Sledghammer Theatre co-founder Robert Brill for set design.
  • And we can't forget the Lifetime Achievement Award that went to James M. Nederlander, whose company's local arm, Broadway/San Diego, brings touring musicals to the Civic Theatre, including, this summer, Jack O'Brien's Tony-winning Hairspray. 

Both the La Jolla Playhouse and the Old Globe have won the Tony for outstanding regional theatre and with the Globe’s Jack O’Brien’s big win for Best Director, he joins the La Jolla Playhouse’s Des McAnuff as a San Diegan with two on his bookshelf.

 

Over the past decade, San Diego has emerged as one of the leading centers for regional theatre and one of the best theatre towns to present new musicals. Well-known Broadway hits that were started or significantly developed here include, Thoroughly Modern Millie, Jane Eyre, The Who’s Tommy, Into the Woods, Damn Yankees, How to Success in Business Without Really Trying, It Ain’t  Nothin’ But the Blues, and Big River.

 

Home to two Tony Award-winning regional theaters and a multitude of other spaces showcasing dozens of productions annually, San Diego has established a national reputation as a place where “when the sun goes down, the curtain goes up!”

 

For a complete list of What’s Playing all year on San Diego stages, check out the San Diego Performing Arts League website at www.sandiegoperforms.com

For more Tony updates, go to www.tonyawards.com

 

 

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