Video: Zhailon Levingston and Bill Rauch React to Tony Win for Best Direction of a Musical for CATS: THE JELLICLE BALL

Earlier tonight at the 79th Annual Tony Awards, Zhailon Levingston and Bill Rauch took home the Tony Award for Best Direction of a Musical for CATS: The Jellicle Ball. After leaving the stage at Radio City Music Hall, they checked in with BroadwayWorld's Richard Ridge to share their initial reaction!

Zhailon Levingston is a Louisiana-raised storyteller, director, and activist. He is a Board Member for the Broadway Advocacy Coalition, which he co-created, and teaches the Theatre of Change course at Columbia University. He is a Music Mentor Fellow and has done work with Idina Menzel’s A Broader Way Foundation. His directing credits include: Neptune (Dixon Place, Brooklyn Museum), The Years That Went Wrong (Lark, MCC), The Exonerated (Columbia Law School), Chariot Part 2 (Soho Rep., for The Movement Theatre Company), Mother of Pearl (LaGuardia Performing Arts Center). He is the associate director of Primer for a Failed Superpower with Tony Award winner Rachel Chavkin, and Runaways at The Public Theater with Sam Pinkleton. Most recently, he directed Chicken & Biscuits which premiered on Broadway in 2021 and Patience which premiered at Second Stage UPTOWN Summer of 2022. Zhailon is also the former resident director at Tina: The Tina Turner Musical on Broadway and the associate director of Hadestown in South Korea.

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