Broadway Producer Stacey Mindich to Keynote Syracuse University's Newhouse School's Convocation Ceremony

Stacey Mindich '86, Tony Award-winning producer and a 1986 alumna of the Newhouse School at Syracuse University, will speak at the Newhouse Convocation Ceremony on Saturday, May 14, at noon in the Carrier Dome.

"Since I graduated from Newhouse in '86, I have always carried a part of it with me, from magazine to magazine and now even to the theater," says Mindich. "Though I began as a journalist and now produce Broadway shows, I learned from my professors at school that storytelling in any form can be meaningful as long as it is authentic and from the heart. I am gratified to come back and share that lesson with this year's graduates."

Mindich was recently named one of Variety's Entertainment Elite. She is the recipient of the 2016 Robert Whitehead Award for Excellence in Commercial Producing.

She has worked with such artists as William Finn, Jason Robert Brown, Charles Strouse, Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman, Adam Gwon, Benjamin Scheuer, Pasek & Paul, Maury Yeston, Michael Greif, James Lapine, Bart Sher, Jack O'Brien, Michael Grandage, Michael Mayer, Leigh Silverman, Diane Paulus, Marsha Norman, Will Eno, Steven Levenson, Quiara Hudes and many others.

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 "Hughie."

After a critically-acclaimed run at Arena Stage in Washington, D.C., Stacey Mindich Productions' newest project, "Dear Evan Hansen," will have its New York premiere at Second Stage Theatre in March. The production was born out of a commissioning program at Stacey Mindich Productions that pairs emerging composers with the esteemed directors of the theater industry. Believing deeply in the need to premiere new musical works and nurture new voices, Mindich has also funded and enhanced productions for a variety of not-for-profit theaters including Playwrights Horizons, The Roundabout Theatre Company, Williamstown Theatre Festival and Second Stage. She has also established The Stacey and Eric Mindich Fund for Musicals at Lincoln Center Theater to commission new musicals and support stellar revivals.

Mindich 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, Mindich's brainchild, "Encores: Off-Center." She 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. She also initiated the Fund for New Musicals at the National Alliance for Musical Theater, where she was vice president of the board. She is also a board member of The Jimmy's (The National High School Music Theater Awards).

Mindich is a graduate of the Newhouse School's magazine program. Prior to her career in theater, she was a journalist and editor. She was senior editor at Town & Country, features editor at Departures, senior editor at Savvy and senior writer at Self. She began her career as a reporter for The New York Times, and has also written for Newsday, Vogue, Harper's Bazaar and Health. She is the author of the book "Town & Country's Elegant Weddings" and her essays have appeared in a collection of anthologies called "Social Graces."

At Newhouse, she funded the Glavin Magazine Lab in honor of her former professor, William Glavin, who died in 2010. The space, which was dedicated by New Yorker editor-in-chief David Remnick in 2008, is located in Newhouse 1 and serves as a hub for magazine students.

In 2006, Mindich created the William A. Glavin Benchmark Trip, which brings magazine seniors to New York City each year to meet with industry leaders and participate in panel discussions about the state of the publishing industry. She also hosts students from Newhouse's Critical Writing (MAG 518) course in New York City each spring, when they attend her shows and write reviews.