By SHARON EBERSON

Kathleen Marshall, the three-time Tony Award-winning director/choreographer who grew up in Pittsburgh, is now an inductee into the Theater Hall of Fame. Her name will be inscribed on the walls of Broadway’s Gershwin Theatre, along with 2025 fellow inductees including Oscar- and Tony-winning costume designer Paul Tazewell, and former Broadway Cares executive director and Western Pennsylvania native Tom Viola.

Other 2025 inductees are Anne Bogart, a director and co-founder of the SITI Company; producer and former National Endowment for the Arts chair Rocco Landesman; actor Richard Thomas; Kenny Leon, the multihyphenate theater-marker and Wilsonian Warrior who directed the Broadway premieres of Gem of the Ocean and Radio Golf; and, posthumously, performer Rebecca Luker.

Marshall, who graduated from Allderdice High School, earned Tony Awards for choreographing Anything Goes, The Pajama Game and Wonderful Town. She had directorial nominations for all three, plus nods for Kiss Me Kate (choreographer) and Nice Work If You Can Get it (director/choreographer), for a total of nine. Marshall served as the artistic director for City Center Encores! for four seasons, during which time Encores! received a special Tony for Excellence in Theatre.

Among her many projects, Marshall will serve as director and choreographer for the American premiere of the new musical Mythic, with a pop-rock score by Oran Eldor and a book by Point Park University alum Marcus Stevens, at Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park September 20-October 19, 2025.

During Viola’s 36 years at the organization known as “the philanthropic heart of the Broadway community,” Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS awarded more than $300 million: $142 million to the Entertainment Community Fund (formerly The Actors Fund) and another $160 million to 450 local organizations nationwide, through its National Grants Program, providing “meals and medication, health care and hope to countless individuals and families.” Viola retired at the end of last year.

The 54th annual Theater Hall of Fame for Lifetime Achievement in the American Theater induction ceremony will be held in the fall at the Gershwin Theatre, home of Broadway’s Wicked.

The Theater Hall of Fame was founded in 1970 by Earl Blackwell, James M. Nederlander, Gerard Oestreicher and L. Arnold Weissberger, with a mission “to preserve past theater history, honor the present theater professionals, and encourage emerging artists of the American Theater.”

To be eligible for induction, the theater professional must have given 25 years distinguished service to the American theater. Inductees are voted on by members of the Theater Hall of Fame and the American Theatre Critics/Journalists Association. Among more than 50 nominees, the final eight receiving the most votes are ratified for the annual induction.

For more information, visit https://www.theaterhalloffame.org/executive-committee.html. 

Categories: Arts and Ideas

Tags: American Theatre Hall of Fame, Kathleen Marshall, Kenny Leon, Paul Tazewell, Tom Viola