Tony-Winning Producer Stacey Mindich Receives 2016 Robert Whitehead Award Today

Tony Award-winning Broadway producer Stacey Mindich will be presented The Commercial Theater Institute's Robert Whitehead Award for "outstanding achievement in commercial theatre producing" at a reception at Sardi's today, March 15, 2016.

The award is inspired by the five-decade-long career of Tony Award-winning Broadway producer Robert Whitehead, who died in 2002. CTI is the nation's only formal program that professionally trains commercial theatre producers. The award honors a graduate of CTI for outstanding achievement in commercial theatre producing. CTI presented the first Robert Whitehead Award in 1993 to Benjamin Mordecai and Susan Quint Gallin.

Stacey Mindich is a Tony Award-winning producer and was recently named one of Variety's Entertainment Elite. Noteworthy productions include the Tony Award-winning Hedwig and the Angry Inch, The Bridges of Madison County (Tony Award, Best Score), Annie, The Heiress, Lucky Guy, The Cripple of Inishmaan, The Lion (Drama Desk Award), and this season's much anticipated original musical, Dear Evan Hansen.

"Stacey is an ideal Whitehead Award winner. She is bold and passionate - developing and producing great new shows for Broadway and beyond while supporting artists across a wide range of experience as well as important theatrical organizations. She's what a Broadway producer should be," said Tom Viertel, Executive Director of CTI.

"Stacey Mindich continues the tradition of legendary producers such as Robert Whitehead, for whom this award is named, with her innovation in developing and producing works by both new and established artists," said Victoria Bailey, TDFs' Executive Director.

"It's fitting that the very talented Tony Award-winning producer Stacey Mindich has been named the recipient of the 2016 Robert Whitehead Award," said Charlotte St. Martin, President of the Broadway League. "Stacey's dedication to both new and classical productions on our stages makes her an excellent choice to honor Robert Whitehead's legacy."

After a critically-acclaimed run at Arena Stage in Washington, DC, Stacey Mindich Productions' newest project, Dear Evan Hansen, will have its New York premiere at Second Stage Theatre in March. The original musical features a score by the Tony-nominated composing team of Pasek & Paul, a book by Outer Critics Circle Award-winning playwright Steven Levenson and is directed by Rent and Next to Normal's Tony-nominated Michael Greif. Dear Evan Hansen was born out of a commissioning program at Stacey Mindich Productions that pairs emerging composers with esteemed directors. Believing deeply in the need to premiere new musical works and nurture new voices, Stacey has also funded and enhanced productions for a variety of not-for-profit theaters including Playwrights Horizons (The Dead, Burnt Part Boys, The Shaggs, Far from Heaven and Fly by Night), The Roundabout Theatre Company (Ordinary Days and The Disappearance of Tom Durnin), Williamstown Theatre Festival (an as-of-yet untitled Benjamin Scheuer project) and Second Stage (Quiara Hudes' Pulitzer Prize-winning Water by the Spoonful and Jason Robert Brown's beloved The Last Five Years). Stacey has also established The Stacey and Eric Mindich Fund for Musicals at Lincoln Center Theater, to commission new musicals (Women on the Verge, Dogfight) and support stellar revivals such as the Tony Award-winning South Pacific and the Tony Award-winning The King and I.

Stacey is the co-chair of the board at New York City Center, home to the Tony Award-winning Encores series of musical revivals and its newest series, Stacey's brainchild, Encores: Off-Center. Led by artistic director Jeanine Tesori, Off-Center spotlights off-Broadway revivals interpreted for a new generation. Stacey is a founding board member of the Lilly Awards, where she presents the annual "Go Write a Play Award," which supports a new work by a female playwright every year. Past recipients include Tanya Barfield, Neena Beeber and Heidi Schreck. She also initiated the "Fund for New Musicals" at the National Alliance for Musical Theater, where she was vice president of the board for many years. Married to Eric Mindich for 20 years, their proudest co-productions are sons Russell, Danny and Charlie.

A joint project of The Broadway League and Theatre Development Fund, CTI was founded in 1981 by the late Frederic B. Vogel. The current executive director, Tom Viertel took on leadership of the program in 2013.

The Commercial Theater Institute presented the first Robert Whitehead Award in 1993 to Benjamin Mordecai (seven August Wilson plays on Broadway) and Susan Quint Gallin (Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, Monty Python's Spamalot). Subsequent honorees include: Dennis Grimaldi (The Heidi Chronicles, On The Town) in 1994; Kevin McCollum (Something Rotten, In the Heights) in 1995; Randall L. Wreghitt (The Miracle Worker, Grey Gardens) in 1996; Marc Routh (Penn & Teller on Broadway, A Little Night Music) in 1997; Liz Oliver (Wait Until Dark, Last Night of Ballyhoo) in 1998; Eric Krebs (The Dinner Party, Electra) in 1999; Anne Strickland Squadron (Bill Maher: Victory Begins at Home, The Herbal Bed) in 2000; David Binder (Hedwig and the Angry Inch, Of Mice and Men) in 2004; Nick Scandalios (Executive VP of the Nederlander Organization: Wicked, In the Heights) in 2008; Dori Berinstein (Legally Blonde: The Musical, Thoroughly Modern Millie) in 2009; Stuart Thompson (King Charles III, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time) in 2010; Jill Furman (Hamilton, Rodgers and Hammerstein's Cinderella) in 2011; Jon B. Platt (Fish in the Dark, The Audience) in 2012; Jeffrey Finn (An Act of God, Elephant Man) in 2013; and Robert Cole (Ma Rainey's Black Bottom, Angels in America, Once) in 2015.