Two Meadows Alumni Receive Tony Awards Sunday Night
James Houghton ’86 and Will Trice ’01 Receive Broadway’s Top Honor
Two Meadows alumni were among the winners at the annual Tony Awards extravaganza at Radio City Music Hall in New York City on June 8.
James Houghton (M.F.A. Theatre, ’86), who founded the Signature Theatre in New York City in 1991, won a Tony for Best Regional Theatre. It was the first time that a New York theatre has won the award, which is presented annually to a regional theatre recommended by the American Theatre Critics Association.
Signature is the first theatre company to devote an entire season to the work of a single playwright, including re-examinations of past writings as well as New York and world premieres. By championing in-depth explorations of a living playwright’s body of work, Signature delivers an intimate and immersive journey into the playwright’s singular vision. The theatre has presented entire seasons of the work of Edward Albee, Lee Blessing, Horton Foote, Maria Irene Fornes, Athol Fugard, John Guare, David Henry Hwang, Bill Irwin, Adrienne Kennedy, Tony Kushner, Romulus Linney, Charles Mee, Arthur Miller, Sam Shepard, Paula Vogel, August Wilson, Lanford Wilson, and a season celebrating the historic Negro Ensemble Company. Signature’s new “Residency Five” program supports seven playwrights, all of whom are guaranteed three world premieres of new works over the course of a five-year residency. The playwrights include Meadows alumna Regina Taylor (’81), Annie Baker, Martha Clarke, Will Eno, Katori Hall, Branden Jacobs-Jenkins and Kenneth Lonergan.
Over the years, Signature, its productions and its resident writers have been recognized with the Pulitzer Prize, Lucille Lortel Awards, Obie Awards, Drama Desk Awards and AUDELCO Awards, among many other distinctions.
Click to watch a video of James Houghton being interviewed at the Tonys by Broadway World:
Will Trice (B.A. Music, ’01), a producer with the Broadway entertainment firm Jeffrey Richards Associates, won a Tony as one of the producers of the play All The Way, named Best Play of the year. Starring Bryan Cranston – who won the Tony for Best Actor for his portrayal of President Lyndon Johnson – the play focuses on LBJ’s efforts to pass the Civil Rights Act of 1964. It previously won two Outer Critics Circle Awards, a Drama League Award and two Drama Desk Awards.
Trice is also one of the producers for two plays that took home Tony awards in other categories this year, including Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar and Grill (Best Actress and Best Sound Design of a Play) and The Glass Menagerie (Best Lighting Design).
Last year, Trice won a Tony for Best Revival of a Play for Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, and in 2012 he won for Best Revival of a Musical with The Gershwins’ Porgy and Bess.