Rob Marshall, High School Musical‘s Ortega Win DGA Awards

Rob Marshall has won the coveted Directors Guild of America award for helming the TV music special Tony Bennett: An American Classic. The awards were handed out on February 3 in Los Angeles.

Martin Scorsese won the DGA award for motion pictures for The Departed; Walter Hill won the honor for TV movies for Broken Trail; Richard Shepard won for TV comedy for the pilot episode of Ugly Betty; Jon Cassar won for TV drama for an episode of 24; Arunas Matelis won for feature-film documentary for Before Flying Back to the Earth; and Kenny Ortega won for children’s programming for High School Musical.

Marshall has received Tony Award nominations for choreographing Kiss of the Spider Woman, She Loves Me, Damn Yankees, and Little Me, as well as nominations for directing and choreographing Cabaret. He received an Oscar nomination for directing Chicago, which won the Academy Award for Best Picture.

Ortega is best known for his work as choreographer of such films as Xanadu, Dirty Dancing, Pretty in Pink, and To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything, Julie Newmar.