NEW YORK CITY: Stage and Directors and Choreographers Foundation (SDCF) has named Tony Award-winning director Joe Mantello the recipient of its 2020 Mr. Abbott Award, a lifetime achievement award given to a Broadway director or choreographer. The award will be presented at SDCF’s annual gala in March 2020.
“Joe’s valuable artistry, wide range, and unceasing desire to achieve the very best in his work, and to bring out the best in his collaborators, all richly recommend him for this great honor,” said SDCF president Sheldon Epps in a statement. “It is truly our great honor to honor Joe in this way.”
The Mr. Abbott Award, presented by SDCF on behalf of directors and choreographers to one of their peers, is named for the late George Abbott, a renowned director, playwright, actor, and producer.
Mantello began his career as an actor and received Tony nominations for his performances in Angels in America and The Normal Heart. He earned his first directorial Tony nomination for Love! Valour! Compassion! in 1995. Mantello has since earned five more Tony nominations for directing, winning for Take Me Out and Assassins. He is the recipient of Outer Critics Circle, Drama Desk, Lucille Lortel, Helen Hayes, Clarence Derwent, Obie, and Joe A. Callaway awards. Mantello was inducted into the Theater Hall of Fame in 2018, and is currently directing the film adaptation of his Broadway production of The Boys in the Band by Mart Crowley. He will direct the Broadway revival of Albee’s Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? this spring.
Founded in 1965, SDCF, the nonprofit foundation of Stage Directors and Choreographers Society (SDC), exists to foster, promote, and develop the creativity and craft of stage directors and choreographers, and to create access to the field and connect artists.
