Commissioned Choreographers Al Blackstone, Jenn Rose, Kitty McNamee, Katie Spelman, and Raja Feather Kelly with Jerry Mitchell. David Hyde Pierce holding the Agnes de Mille letter.
Artwork © The Al Hirschfeld Foundation. www.AlHirschfeld.org Agnes de Mille drawing courtesy of Anderson Ferrell and Dirk Lumbard
HIGHLIGHTS FROM
STAGE DIRECTORS AND CHOREOGRAPHERS FOUNDATION 2019 “MR. ABBOTT” AWARD GALA AND SDC 60TH ANNIVERSARY CELEBRATION HOSTED BY DAVID HYDE PIERCE AND DIRECTED BY JERRY MITCHELL
(March 26, 2019) Last night Stage Directors and Choreographers Foundation (SDCF), the non-for-profit foundation of Stage Directors and Choreographers Society (SDC), hosted the annual “Mr. Abbott” Award gala and celebrated the 60th anniversary of SDC.
The celebration began at the Metropolitan Club where James Lapine (2015 “Mr. Abbott” Award winner) presented Victoria Traube with a Special “Mr. Abbott” Award for her extraordinary passion and commitment to, and profound understanding of, the work of directors and choreographers who bring theatre to life.
The SDC 60th Anniversary festivities continued down the street at the French Institute and the Alliance Française (FIAF) hosted by David Hyde Pierce.
The big question of the evening was – What is in the sealed Agnes de Mille letter? On December 2, 1963 Ms. de Mille sent a letter to the Union for safe-keeping, explaining that it contained the outline for a new theatrical work which she described as follows:
“Under separate cover, I am mailing you a manuscript in a sealed envelope. Please file it unopened, with the date carefully noted. It is the outline for a play, and I have no means of copyrighting except this way. The material is eminently stealable and I’m discussing the matter with people of equal ambitions.”
The letter – marked “Please file unopened” and sealed with wax was found by SDC staff when the officed moved on March 25, 2015. SDC Member choreographers were selected through a competitive process to create new works that imagine what Ms. de Mille might have had in mind during that turbulent year, which included Dr. Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech and the death of President John F. Kennedy.
Jerry Mitchell (2013 “Mr. Abbott” Award winner) directed the tribute performance in honor of Ms. de Mille, one of SDC’s legendary founders, featuring premiere commissioned choreography works by SDC Members Al Blackstone, Raja Feather Kelly, Kitty McNamee, Jenn Rose, and Katie Spelman.
Laura Osnes performed both at the Met Club and FIAF, first singing “I Have Confidence” (The Sound of Music) and then “The Heather on the Hill” (Brigadoon) at FIAF.
The many people on hand to pay tribute to Victoria Traube and celebrate SDC’s 60th Anniversary included: Event Chairs Philip J. Smith, Robert E. Wankel, Theodore S. Chapin, and Mark Brokaw, who were joined by Mrs. George Abbott and George Abbott’s granddaughter Amy Davidson, SDCF Board of Trustees President Sheldon Epps, Kathleen Marshall (2005 “Mr. Abbott” Award winner), Jack O’Brien (2002 “Mr. Abbott” Award winner), Nicole Fosse, Kathryn Grody, Lynne Meadow (2003 “Mr. Abbott” Award winner), Victoria’s family, friends and Concord Music Publishing, North America executives Sean Flahaven, Scott Pascucci, Steve Smith and Jake Wisely, and more.
Proceeds from the gala will benefit Stage Directors and Choreographers Foundation (SDCF), whose mentorship programs, community forums, and public events develop and promote the creativity and craft of directors and choreographers and foster a cross-generational, national theatre community.
The Honoree and Key Players
Victoria Traube during The “Mr. Abbott” Award 2019 at The Metropolitan Club on 3/25/2019 in New York City.
Victoria Traube is Senior Vice President, Business Affairs and General Counsel of Concord Music. She is responsible for the business and legal affairs of The Rodgers & Hammerstein Organization, Concord’s theater, motion picture and television projects, Boosey & Hawkes and the former Imagem pop catalogue. She started work at The Rodgers & Hammerstein Organization in 1995 when it was still owned by the Rodgers & Hammerstein families. From 1987 through mid-1995, she was Vice President and Head of New York Motion Picture and Theatre Business Affairs for International Creative Management, Inc., where she worked with Sam Cohn, whose clients included Mike Nichols, James Lapine, Nora Ephron, Peter Hall, Tommy Tune, Arthur Penn, Arthur Miller, Peter Stone, Herb Gardner, Bill Irwin, Meryl Streep, Sigourney Weaver, Mandy Patinkin, Patrick Stewart, Lily Tomlin, Penn and Teller and many others. Before that she was Senior Counsel and Director of Business Affairs for Home Box Office, Inc. and an associate at the New York law firm of Paul Weiss Rifkind Wharton & Garrison. She is a Trustee of The God Bless America Fund and a board member of Dramatists Guild Copyright Management, Inc. She served as Theatre Chair of the American Bar Association’s Forum on the Sports and Entertainment Industries, Chair of the Entertainment Law Committee of the Association of The Bar of The City of New York and a board member of the SDC Foundation. She is a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania Law School, where she was a member of The Law Review, and Radcliffe College. She has taught seminars and panels on theater and motion picture law and business affairs at Columbia Law School, Wesleyan University, New York University, SDC Foundation, and the ABA Forum on the Sports and Entertainment Industries, among others. Her father was Shepard Traube, director and producer, who was the first President of the SDC and one of its founders with Agnes de Mille, Hanya Holm and Ezra Stone. Her mother was Mildred Traube, the Executive Secretary of SDC from 1968-1984. The rights of directors and choreographers were the subject of discussion at the Traube family dinner table beginning in her early childhood.
Pioneering choreographer Agnes de Mille shifted the national perspective on how dance could be used in story development, both in musical 
theatre and balletic works. In 1943, her dream ballet choreography for Oklahoma! was the first appearance of truly story-integrated dance, using dance to advance the plot of a musical. Ms. de Mille choreographed over a dozen other musicals on Broadway, including Carousel, Brigadoon (co-winner of the inaugural Tony Award for Choreography), Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, Paint Your Wagon and 110 in the Shade, as well as the film version of Oklahoma!
George Abbott, 1953
One of the most important and admired men in the entire history of Broadway, George Abbott (b. Forestville, NY, 25 June 1887; d. Miami Beach, FL, 31 January 1995) was a theater director and producer, playwright, screenwriter, and film director and producer whose career spanned more than nine decades. He had a hand, one way or another, in the most historically and artistically significant New York productions of the twentieth century: Broadway (1926), Three Men on a Horse (1935), Brother Rat (1936), On Your Toes (1936), Room Service (1937), The Boys from Syracuse (1938), Too Many Girls (1939), Pal Joey (1940), On the Town (1944), High Button Shoes (1947), Where’s Charley? (1948), Call Me Madam (1950), Wonderful Town (1953), The Pajama Game (1954), Damn Yankees (1955), Once Upon a Mattress (1959), Fiorello! (1959), A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum (1961), Flora the Red Menace (1965), and 103 other shows. Abbott had 40 films to his credit as screenwriter, director, or producer, among them All Quiet on the Western Front (1930), The Fall Guy (1930), and the film adaptations of his Broadway hits; his featured screen actors included Jean Arthur, Lew Ayres, and Gene Tierney.
SDC Foundation 2019 “Mr. Abbott” Donors
Thank you for your generous support!