Tony Award Winners Derek McLane, Rob Ashford and Stephen Oremus Join OSCARS' Production Team

Award winning producer Craig Zadan turned to Twitter today to announce the production team for the 87th Annual ACADEMY AWARDS. The roster features three Tony Award winners including production designer Derek McLane (Broadway's Beautiful: The Carole King Story), Choreographer Rob Ashford (Broadway's Promises Promise) and Musical Director Stephen Oremus (Wicked, Avenue Q, Book of Mormon, Kinky Boots)

Along with the image at left, Zadan tweeted: "#OSCARS 2015 BIG NEWS TODAY:
HERE'S THE AMAZING #OSCARS PRODUCTION TEAM WE'VE HIRED FOR THIS YEAR'S SHOW! CZ & NM

ROB ASHFORD's work has been seen on "The Kennedy Center Honors" and "The Tony® Awards," and in 2009, he won an Emmy for his work on the 81st Academy Awards show. He has been nominated for eight TONY AWARDS and won for Best Choreography in 2002 for Thoroughly Modern Millie. Ashford's other Broadway choreography credits include The Wedding Singer, Curtains, Cry-Baby and Evita. Currently, Ashford is directing a revival of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof starring Scarlett Johansson.

DEREK MCLANE has designed sets for numerous Broadway and Off-Broadway shows, several of which have been nominated for Tony Awards. He received four nominations and won Best Scenic Design of a Play in 2009 for his work on 33 Variations. McLane's other Broadway credits include The Heiress, Nice Work If You Can Get It,Gore Vidal's The Best Man, Follies, Anything Goes, Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo, Grease and I Am My Own Wife.

McLane's television credits include NBC's Sound of Music Live and the 2013 Academy Awards. He was nominated for a 2013 Primetime Emmy for Outstanding Art Direction for Variety or Nonfiction programming for his work on the 85th Oscars.

His other Broadway credits include Breakfast at Tiffany's, Million Dollar Quartet; Ragtime; 33 Variations; I Am My Own Wife; Man and Boy; The Pajama Game; Lestat; The Women; The Threepenny Opera; Present Laughter; Holiday; Marie and Bruce; A Lie of the Mind; Ruined; Becky Shaw; Rafta, Rafta...; The Voysey Inheritance; Intimate Apparel; Hurlyburly; Modern Orthodox; Aunt Dan and Lemon.

Awards include 1997 and 2004 Obie Awards; 2004, 2005, 2007 Lucille Lortel Awards; 2009 Hewes Award; 2009 Tony Award; 2011 Drama Desk Award.

STEPHEN OREMUS received the 2013 Tony Award for Best Orchestrations for Kinky Boots, for which he also served as Music Supervisor and Arranger. He received the 2011 Tony and Drama Desk Awards for co-orchestrating The Book of Mormon, as well as the 2012 Grammy Award for producing the cast recording. In addition to orchestrations for The Book of Mormon, he wrote the vocal arrangements and serves as music supervisor for the Broadway, National Tour, and London productions. Stephen is the music supervisor and arranger of the original Broadway production of Wicked, and of the subsequent productions of this hugely popular musical playing around the world. He was the music supervisor, vocal arranger, and orchestrator of Avenue Q, for the Broadway, off-Broadway, London, and the National Tour productions. He was the music supervisor, vocal arranger and orchestrator of the Broadway musical adaptation of 9 to 5, with a score by Dolly Parton. Stephen was co-producer, with Ms. Parton, for the Grammy nominated 9 to 5 Broadway cast recording. His other Broadway credits include All Shook Up, as music supervisor/vocal arranger/co-orchestrator; and High Fidelity, as
vocal arranger.

For the off-Broadway stage, Stephen has conducted, arranged and orchestrated tick, tick...BOOM! and served as music director and conductor of Andrew Lippa's The Wild Party at Manhattan Theater Club. He also was music director of Jerry Springer - The Opera at Carnegie Hall. Outside of New York City, he was the music director for the National Tour of Rent, as well as several productions of The Radio City Christmas Spectacular. Stephen was vocal arranger for Tales of the City, a new musical which played at San Francisco's American Conservatory Theater. He was music supervisor and arranger of Signed Sealed Delivered - The Music of Stevie Wonder starring Chaka Kahn at the Venetian Hotel in Las Vegas and music director and arranger of Broadway Meets Country which featured Trisha Yearwood, Carrie Underwood, and Lee Ann Womack, in both New York City and Nashville. Stephen served as music director/conductor for Rufus Wainwright 's recreation of Judy Garland's legendary 1961 concert at Carnegie Hall, New York City; The Palladium, London; and the Olympia, Paris. He also was the music director and conductor for House of Rufus at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, London. The Fox-Searchlight film Shame features Carey Mulligan singing Stephen's arrangement of New York, New York. He recently conducted the songs and provided additional orchestrations for the Oscar-winning Disney film Frozen, with music and lyrics by Robert Lopez & Kristen Anderson Lopez. Stephen is a graduate of Berklee College of Music, Boston.

The last two Oscars telecasts, which were produced by Zadan and Meron, received a major SPIKE in the ratings. The 86th Oscars was TV's most-watched entertainment event in 10 years and attracted the biggest viewership since 2000, with more than 45 million viewers. The show resulted in dramatic gains in younger demos and social media conversation, with more than one billion impressions generated on Twitter and 25 million interactions happening on Facebook on Oscar Sunday. Additionally, the star-studded "selfie" became the most retweeted photo of all time with 32.8 million views.

The Oscars will be held at the Dolby Theatre® at Hollywood & Highland Center® in Hollywood, and will be televised live by the ABC Television Network on February 22, 2015 at 4:00 p.m., ET/7:00 p.m., PT. The Oscar presentation also will be televised live in more than 225 countries and territories worldwide. Neil Patrick Harris will serve as this year's host.

Source: Twitter