Tony Awards to Honor TheatreWorks Silicon Valley With 2019 Regional Theatre Award

The Tony Awards Administration Committee has announced that based on the recommendation by the American Theatre Critics Association, it will award TheatreWorks Silicon Valley the 2019 Regional Theatre Tony Award at this year's Tony Awards, to take place June 9 at Radio City Music Hall.

"The work they produce celebrates the human spirit, they have helped develop hundreds of vibrant new plays and musicals that are now being performed in theaters across America, and they have pioneered education programs that inspire thousands of students each year, creating future generations of creative artists and enthusiastic audiences," said Broadway League president Charlotte St. Martin and American Theatre Wing president Heather Hitchens in a statement.

"I am deeply honored to accept the Regional Theatre Tony Award for TheatreWorks Silicon Valley," said the company's founding artistic director, Robert Kelley — who created the company as a Stanford graduate — in a statement. "I can think of no better way to begin TheatreWorks's 50th Anniversary Season than with this highest honor, a testament to the passion and imaginative spirit of the artists whose work has been presented on TheatreWorks's stages."

Since its founding in 1970, TheatreWorks Silicon Valley has become one of the nation's leaders in cultivating and producing new musicals and plays, developing and presenting 69 world premieres (with a 70th coming up this season) by new and veteran artists, in addition to 167 regional premieres, and hundreds of works developed in the company's New Works Initiatives. The company has developed scores of works which have gone on to regional, off-Broadway, and Broadway productions. Notably, the Best Musical Tony Award and Olivier award-winning Memphis was first workshopped and received its world premiere at TheatreWorks.