NEW YORK CITY: The Broadway League introduced the honorees of the 2023 League Awards as a part of the thirty third annual Spring Street Convention. Since 1992, the League Awards have acknowledged those that have displayed exemplary service to the Broadway’s touring trade and are considered innovators of their occupation.
This 12 months’s League Awards recipients embrace Gina Vernaci (Distinguished Lifetime Service Award), Chris Meyers (Excellent Achievement in Street Group Gross sales), Kelli Palan (Excellent Achievement in Street Advertising and marketing & Press), Scott Hemerling (Excellent Achievement in Street Advertising and marketing & Press), Marisol Sánchez-Finest (Excellent Achievement in Training and Engagement), Ron Legler (Excellent Achievement in Presenter Administration), and Kara Gebhart (George MacPherson Street Award).
Honorees within the Star of Touring Broadway class are Congresswoman Kathy Manning (North Carolina’s Sixth Congressional District), Jim Pugh (chairman of the Dr. Phillips Middle for the Performing Arts), and the Boston Space Lexus Sellers Affiliation.
“Congratulations to this 12 months’s League Award honorees, who exemplify excellence of their endeavors of presenting and enriching Broadway of their hometowns,” mentioned Broadway League president Charlotte St. Martin in an announcement. “Broadway is an important nationwide trade. In the course of the 2022-23 season, touring Broadway reached an viewers of greater than 16.5 million with 39 reveals touring in additional than 180 cities. This is able to not be doable with out the super help and efforts of our members.”
Gina Vernaci not too long ago accomplished her tenure as president and chief government officer of Cleveland’s Playhouse Sq., the place she was chargeable for all operations of the nonprofit performing arts middle. She has led initiatives which have helped to place Playhouse Sq. because the area’s premier cultural, vacationer, and leisure vacation spot and the nation’s largest performing arts middle, second solely to New York Metropolis’s Lincoln Middle. Gina secured and constructed a Broadway collection for E.J. Thomas Corridor on the College of Akron and continues to champion programming collaborations with libraries, schools, resident firms, and space nonprofit theatres.
Chris Meyers, initially from Illinois, has been based mostly in Cleveland with Playhouse Sq. for the previous 20 years. After serving as season ticket supervisor for six years, Chris grew to become gross sales supervisor, a place he held for 13 years earlier than his latest promotion to the place of senior supervisor of group gross sales. Along with his work for Playhouse Sq., Chris presently serves as co-chair of the Broadway League’s Street Group Gross sales Committee and Discussion board Planning Committee.
Kelli Palan, director of regional engagement at Disney Theatrical Group, has been with the corporate since 2000. Over the previous twenty years, she has supplied advertising and gross sales promotion to the North American excursions, together with Magnificence and the Beast, AIDA, The Lion King, Excessive Faculty Musical, Newsies, Aladdin, and Frozen. Kelli additionally labored on press and advertising for the pre-Broadway engagements of Aladdin in Toronto and Frozen in Denver.
Scott Hemerling works with a devoted crew at Disney Theatrical Productions on the advertising of The Lion King and Frozen nationwide excursions. Born in Michigan, raised in Fort Lauderdale, and presently residing in New York Metropolis, he graduated from the College of Florida and is a member of the Affiliation of Theatrical Press Brokers and Managers.
Marisol Sánchez-Finest was born in Oaxaca, Mexico, and focuses her work on theatre entry initiatives and offering platforms for traditionally underrepresented communities. She is the director of schooling and group engagement at Seattle Theatre Group. She beforehand labored at La Jolla Playhouse because the affiliate director of schooling. She has labored within the U.S. and Mexico as a theatre educator, actor, and educating artist coach.
Ron Legler is a 28-year veteran of the trade and simply celebrated his ninth 12 months as president of the France-Merrick Performing Arts Middle, dwelling of the Hippodrome Theatre in Downtown Baltimore. After 9 years in group gross sales, Ron served as president of Florida Theatrical Affiliation (FTA), presenting touring Broadway in Miami, Fort Lauderdale, and Orlando. Ron additionally served as president of Orlando’s Downtown Arts District and vp of the Orlando Worldwide Fringe Competition. In 2022, Ron helped develop and cross a invoice creating Maryland’s first theatrical tax credit score to permit Broadway reveals the power to develop, rehearse, construct, and launch their pre-Broadway present or pre-touring actions in Maryland.
Kara Gebhart is the chief working officer of the Reserving Group (TBG), the place she has labored to convey over 27 Tony-winning musicals and performs to theatres throughout North America, together with Hire, Mamma Mia!, The Producers, The E book of Mormon, Hamilton, and Six. She is an energetic member of the Broadway League, presently sitting on the Broadway League’s Street Presenters/Intra-Trade Committee and the Spring Street Convention Planning Committee.
Kathy Manning represents North Carolina’s Sixth Congressional District which incorporates Guilford and Rockingham Counties, and components of Forsyth and Caswell Counties – an space often called the Triad.
Jim Pugh, the chairman of the Dr. Phillips Middle for the Performing Arts from 2003–2022, has been a visionary on the arts middle since its unique inception in 2003. He dedicated his time, experience, persistence, and willpower to see the challenge come to life. The Alexis and Jim Pugh Theater has hosted 1000’s of regional artists and performances since opening in 2014. Beneath his management, the humanities middle opened the two,700-seat Walt Disney Theater to convey Broadway performances to new heights for the Central Florida group.
The Boston Space Lexus Sellers Affiliation consists of six Lexus dealerships who’ve joined collectively to present again to the area people with sponsorship efforts. The Boston Space LDA is comprised of Lexus of Watertown, Ira Lexus, Lexus Northborough, Ira Lexus of Manchester, Herb Chambers Lexus of Sharon, and Herb Chambers Lexus of Hingham.
The Broadway League is the nationwide commerce affiliation for the Broadway trade. The League’s 700-plus members embrace theatre house owners and operators, producers, presenters, and basic managers in practically 200 markets in North America and internationally.
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