About The Gordon Davidson Award

The Gordon Davidson Award will be bestowed annually by SDCF to recognize a director or choreographer for lifetime achievement and distinguished service in the regional theatre nationally.

Eligibility

The recipients of the Davidson Award will be recommended by a committee of professional peers, selected by the SDCF Board of Trustees.

About Gordon Davidson

Gordon Davidson – Photo credit: Craig Schwartz.

Gordon Davidson (1933-2016) was the founding artistic director of Los Angeles’s Mark Taper Forum, which he led from 1967 to 2005, as well as artistic director of the Ahmanson Theatre from 1989 to 2005. In 2004 Davidson produced the inaugural season at the Kirk Douglas Theatre. Under his leadership, numerous works were developed or made their premieres in Los Angeles, including Zoot Suit, Angels in America, The Shadow Box, The Trial of the Catonsville Nine, In the Matter of J. Robert Oppenheimer, Jelly’s Last Jam and Children of a Lesser God. The Taper received the Tony Award for Outstanding Regional Theatre in 1977, Davidson received the Tony as Best Director of a Play for Children of a Lesser God in 1980, and Davidson was inducted into the Theatre Hall of Fame in 2000. He began his career as a stage manager and briefly served as managing director for the Theatre Group at UCLA.