Tony Award-winning choreographer and director Jerry Mitchell was presented with the Stage Directors and Choreographers Foundation’s 2013 “Mr. Abbott” Award in a ceremony held Monday, May 13 at B.B. King’s. The award is named in honor of renowned director George Abbott and is presented to a director or choreographer in recognition of lifetime achievement.
Mitchell received Tony Award nominations for his direction and choreography of Cyndi Lauper and Harvey Fierstein’s new musical, Kinky Boots, currently running at the Al Hirschfeld Theatre. He received Tony, Drama Desk, and Outer Critics’ Circle Awards for choreographing the 2005 Tony Award-winning La Cage aux Folles and was nominated for the Tony as choreographer of Legally Blonde, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, Hairspray, Never Gonna Dance, and The Full Monty.
On hand to celebrate Mitchell’s career were Kinky Boots writers Lauper and Fierstein, stars Billy Porter, Stark Sands, and Annaleigh Ashford, and designers David Rockwell and Kenneth Posner; Hairspray director Jack O’Brien and stars Matthew Morrison and Marissa Jaret Winokur; Legally Blonde stars Christian Borle and Andy Karl; The Full Monty‘s Andre De Shields, and many others.
Check out photos from the event in the gallery below.
