Point Park Alum Rob Ashford Scores Directors Guild Award Nomination

Point Park alumnus and Tony Award-winner Rob Ashford has received a Directors Guild Award nomination for directing The Sound of Music Live! on NBC last month.

Ashford and co-director Beth McCarthy-Miller were nominated in the category of Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Movies for Television and Mini-Series. This is Ashford's first Directors Guild Award nomination.

The winners will be announced at a ceremony on Feb. 25.

The three-hour live telecast of The Sound of Music in December starred six-time Grammy Award-winner Carrie Underwood as Maria von Trapp, Stephen Moyer, star of HBO's hit series True Blood, as Captain von Trapp, and five-time Tony Award-winner and two-time Grammy Award-winner Audra McDonald as Mother Abbess.

Ashford won a Tony Award in 2002 for choreographing Thoroughly Modern Millie. He has been nominated for a Tony Award eight times and for several Laurence Olivier awards, the British equivalent of the Tony. He won the Drama Desk, Fred Astaire Award, and Outer Critics Circle awards for Cry-Baby (2008).

Ashford made his directorial debut with Parade (2008) on London's West End. On Broadway, he directed revivals of the musicals Promises, Promises, starring Sean Hayes and Kristin Chenoweth, and How To Succeed In Business Without Really Trying, starring Daniel Radcliff. Ashford directed his first non-musical on Broadway, a revival of Tennessee Williams' Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, starring Scarlett Johansson, last year.

Ashford also directed the musical numbers for the film, Beyond the Sea, Kevin Spacey's Bobby Darin biopic, and won a 2009 Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Choreography for the 81st Annual Academy Awards.