Broadways Highest Honor Goes To O’Neill Center Alumni
AVENUE Q Brings Home the 2004 Tony For Best Musical

Waterford CT June 6th-2004 — “It doesn’t suck to be us tonight!,” exclaimed producer Robyn Goodman when AVENUE Q was named Best Musical of 2004. First workshopped at the Eugene O’Neill Theater Center, the audacious new musical was the recipient of three Tony Awards. In addition to Best Musical, O’Neill alumni Robert Lopez and Jeff Marx were awarded Best Music and Lyrics while Jeff Whitty took home the prize for Best Book of a Musical.

Marx and Lopez thanked the O’Neill during their acceptance speech. When asked about the O’Neill’s role in the show’s development, the pair agreed that the O’Neill, “is where AVENUE Q came together as a show. People who came to see the show at the O’Neill saw AVENUE Q coming together, literally between the first and second reading we had a show.”

Though the mission of the O’Neill is not driven by awards, the organization cannot but take pride when its alumni receives Broadway’s highest honor.

AVENUE Q has been playing to capacity audiences since it opened on Broadway last July. This is the second consecutive year that an O’Neill music theater conference work has been acknowledged by the Tonys. Last season’s production of NINE, which premiered at the O’Neill in 1979 won the 2003 award as Best Revival of a Musical.

AVENUE Q was selected for development and presentation in 2002 by Paulette Haupt, co-founder and artistic director of the Music Theater conference. O’Neill Executive Director Amy Sullivan said, “AVENUE Q’s sweep is a testimony to the importance of the Eugene O’Neill Theater Center as an incubator of new work. The O’Neill is delighted to have been part of the making of AVENUE Q.”

O’Neill Center Artistic director J Ranelli added, “the emergence of AVENUE Q and the talented artists who created it, is both a source of pride and a confirmation of our purpose to develop and discover new voices for the theater.”

In addition to Lopez and Marx, Tony nominated performers Stephanie d’Abruzzo and John Tartaglia along with Tony nominated director Jason Moore began their association with the show at the O’Neill. The inventive musical combines puppetry and live actors in a loving spoof of Sesame Street where its non-human characters deal with adult issues.

This season which marks the 40th anniversary of the O’Neill will combine the Music Theater Conference and the Playwrights Conference. The O’Neill’s 2004 summer activities begin June 12th with the O’Neill Puppetry Conference. The OPC and the OMTC begins on July 5th. Ticket prices are $10 and $12 or $8 weekdays for O’Neill members. To request a summer schedule, apply for an internship or have your name placed on the mailing list, call the O’Neill at 860-443-5378 or the box office at 860-443-1238 (after June 11th).

For more information, visit www.theONEILL.org