Former Hartford Stage leader gets shout-out at Tony Awards
Former Hartford Stage Associate Artistic Director Elizabeth Williamson got a special shout-out from playwright Matthew Lopez when his epic drama “The Inheritance” won for “Best Play” at Sunday night’s Tony Awards.
Lopez thanked Williamson for being the dramaturg on the project and reading every draft of the script. A dramaturg works closely with a playwright, acting as an advisor, editor and sounding board in the development of a new play.
Lopez’s long association with Hartford Stage began in 2012 when the theater produced his Civil War drama “The Whipping Man.” Dozens of theaters had done “The Whipping Man” before Hartford Stage got to it, but his next play, “Somewhere,” had its East Coast premiere at the theater in 2014, and the one after that, “Reverberation,” had its world premiere at Hartford Stage in 2015.
Lopez mentioned “The Inheritance” in an interview he did with Hartford Stage promoting “Reverberation” over five years ago: “I’m about to start work on this ambitious project I’ve hatched with the folks at Hartford Stage — a contemporary reflection on the lasting impact of the AIDS epidemic on gay culture. I am very eager to get to work on it, especially as a project for Hartford Stage.”
Hartford Stage commissioned “The Inheritance” but declined to give it a full production, perhaps because of its scale — the six-hour play is staged in two parts and requires over a dozen actors. “The Inheritance” ultimately had its world premiere in London, England, directed
by Stephen Daldry. That’s the production (with some cast changes) that moved to Broadway and was nominated for Tonys.
Williamson was instrumental in bringing Lopez to Hartford Stage, and has been his dramaturg on multiple projects.
She worked on both the London and Broadway renditions of “The Inheritance” while also working at Hartford Stage, where, among other things, she directed Caryl Churchill’s “Cloud 9,” Shakespeare’s “Henry V” and Sarah Gancher’s “Seder” and served as a dramaturg on over 20 scripts, including “Anastasia,” “Make Believe” and “A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder.”
Williamson left Hartford Stage just last year. She directed the last show to be seen at the theater, her own adaptation of the Charlotte Bronte novel “Jane Eyre.” The show’s run ended early due to the COVID shutdown.
Williamson returned to Hartford, virtually at least, as the co-director of a multimedia streaming play, Sarah Gancher’s “Russian Troll Farm,” which had its world premiere via TheaterWorks Hartford. The political drama received national acclaim, including The New York Times’ list of Best Theater of 2020.
Williamson wasn’t the only theater person well known in Connecticut who got Tony praise Sunday night. The state sends so many shows (and by extension the people who work on those shows) to New York that there is often just one degree of separation between our regional theaters and Broadway.
Alex Timbers, who won as best director for “Moulin Rouge — The Musical,” has been an acclaimed New York director since shortly after graduating from
Yale University in 2001. Graciela Daniele, who was presented with a Lifetime Achievement award, directed numerous shows at Hartford Stage in the 1980s and ‘90s, including an important revival of William Finn’s “Falsettos” musicals; she also directed a workshop of “James and the Giant Peach” for Goodspeed Musicals. David Alan Grier (Featured Actor in a Play, for the revival of “A Soldier’s Play”) graduated from the Yale (now Geffen) School of Drama in 1981. Andrew Burnap (Lead Actor in a Play, for “The Inheritance”) is another Yale School of Drama grad, who appeared in several shows at the Yale Repertory Theatre. Julie Halston (winner of the Isabelle Stevenson Award) was in “Murder on the Orient Express” at Hartford
Stage in 2018 and has also performed in the state alongside the Connecticut Gay Men’s Chorus. Many of the design awards went to designers whose work has been seen at the Bushnell on Broadway tours.