Tom Kirdahy

Thomas Joseph Kirdahy (born June 18, 1963) is an American Tony and Olivier Award-winning theatrical producer, lawyer, and activist.[1][2][3][4][5][6][7]

Tom Kirdahy
Kirdahy in 2018
Born (1963-06-18) June 18, 1963
Hauppauge, New York
Alma materNew York University, New York University School of Law
OccupationTheatre producer, lawyer
OrganizationTom Kirdahy Productions
Spouse(s)
​
​
(m. 2003; died 2020)​
Websitewww.tomkirdahyproductions.com

Kirdahy most recently produced the Broadway production of the epic two-part play The Inheritance, which received 11 Tony Award nominations including Best Play;[8][9] the musical Hadestown, which won eight Tony Awards including Best Musical;[10][7] the off-Broadway revival of Little Shop of Horrors starring Tammy Blanchard, Jonathan Groff, and Christian Borle, which won the Drama Desk, Drama League and Outer Critics Circle Awards for Best Revival of a Musical;[11][12][13][14] and the 2019 revival of Terrence McNally’s Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune starring Audra McDonald and Michael Shannon, which received two Tony Award nominations including Best Revival of a Play.[3][9]

His other notable Broadway credits include the musical Anastasia, the 2014 revival of It's Only a Play starring Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick, and The Visit starring Chita Rivera, which received five Tony Award nominations.[15] He has received additional Tony nominations for Broadway productions of Mothers and Sons, After Midnight, Ragtime, and Master Class.[3][16] His West End credits include the West End production of The Inheritance, which won four Olivier Awards including Best New Play, and Edward Albee's The Goat, or Who Is Sylvia?.[17] Off-Broadway, Kirdahy has produced The White Chip, The Jungle, and White Rabbit Red Rabbit, among other shows.[18][19]

He serves on The Broadway League Board of Governors,[20] the Board of Trustees of Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS,[21] and the Advisory Council for the Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas at Austin,[22] and is a founding director of Berwin Lee London New York Playwrights, Inc.[23] He was named the Broadway Global Producer of the Year in 2014, and received the Commercial Theater Institute's Robert Whitehead Award for Outstanding Achievement in Commercial Theater Producing in 2019.[24][25]

Early life and education

Kirdahy was born in Hauppauge, New York, in 1963[2] and is the son of Paul E. Kirdahy and Joan Kirdahy (née McGunnigle).[16][26] Two-time Tony Award-winner Donna Murphy grew up across the street from him.[16][27] He attended New York University and graduated as valedictorian of his class in 1985 with a BA in politics and dramatic literature.[28][29] "He served as a student senator and one of the first openly gay chairs of the University Committee on Student Life (UCSL) and the Student Senators Council (SSC)."[30] He then went on to NYU School of Law in the hopes of being an entertainment lawyer.[31]

The advent of the AIDS crisis steered him towards dedicating his early professional career to fighting for LGBT causes and providing free legal services for people with HIV/AIDS.[1] Kirdahy said, "At the time the AIDS crisis was getting worse. A great number of my friends were getting sick and dying. I felt that I needed to do something about the crisis that was decimating my community."[16] He developed projects at Gay Men's Health Crisis and Bronx AIDS services before becoming a Public Advocate in Riverhead, New York, with Nassau-Suffolk Law Services.[1] For many years, he was highly active at the Manhattan Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Community Center, from its early days when ACT UP was forming to when he became a part of the Executive Board where he played a critical role in expanding its cultural programs.[23][32] He was the co-Chair of the East End Gay Organization which would eventually lead him to meet his future husband, playwright, Terrence McNally, as well as LGBT figures like Edith Windsor, the plaintiff in the landmark Supreme Court case that led to the legalization of same-sex marriage.[1][33][34][35]

Theatre career

Kirdahy always maintained a strong passion and love for the theatre, even while pursuing a career as an activist and lawyer. Through the East End Gay Organization, Kirdahy and critic, Isa Goldberg, organized a discussion called "Theatre From a Gay Perspective", which was the beginning of his transition to his producing career. The panel included three playwrights, Lanford Wilson, Edward Albee, and Terrence McNally.[36][37]

In 2007 he produced Deuce by Terrence McNally on Broadway starring Marian Seldes and Angela Lansbury.[38] It was Lansbury's return to Broadway after more than twenty years.[39] Kirdahy went on to produce the Tony-nominated revivals of Ragtime (2009) and the revival of Master Class in the West End starring Tyne Daly (2011).[38]

In 2014, he produced Terrence McNally's play Mothers and Sons starring Tyne Daly, which was McNally's 20th Broadway production.[40] The New York Times described the Tony nominated play as "an ambitious attempt to dramatize the head-spinning changes in Gay America", and "a resonant elegy for a ravaged generation".[41][42] It marked the first time a legally wed gay couple was seen on a Broadway stage.[43]

In 2014, he would go on to produce It's Only a Play, a satire of an opening night on Broadway.[44] The cast included Nathan Lane, Matthew Broderick, Megan Mullally, Rupert Grint, Stockard Channing, F. Murray Abraham, and Micah Stock. It was directed by three-time Tony Award winner Jack O'Brien.[45][46] The production broke box office records at the Gerald Schoenfeld Theatre where it was initially scheduled for an 18-week run.[47] The production transferred to the Bernard Jacobs Theatre and was extended to June 7, 2015. The production would eventually star actors Martin Short, Katie Finneran, Maulik Pancholy, and T. R. Knight.[48][49][50]

Kirdahy followed up It's Only a Play with a production of The Visit, a musical with a book by Terrence McNally, music by John Kander, and lyrics by Fred Ebb.[51] The musical was fifteen years in the making, but the production seen on Broadway was the result of a new team assembled by Kirdahy, which included Chita Rivera, Roger Rees, and directed by John Doyle, who Kirdahy stopped on an airplane in order to get the script read by him.[36][52] The musical went on to earn five Tony nominations.[15]

Kirdahy produced the off-Broadway show White Rabbit Red Rabbit by Nassim Soleimanpour in 2016, which ran for 42 weeks at the Westside Theatre – "a notable achievement on an economically challenging Off-Broadway landscape", according to Variety.[53] Each performance, the actor was handed the script in front of the audience. They did not have access to the text until that moment and then performed it live with a script in hand.[53] A portion of the play's profits were donated to PEN International, an association of writers working to promote literature and defend freedom of expression around the world.[54] The idea of a new weekly guest star attracted a rotating cast of performers including Whoopi Goldberg, Nathan Lane, Martin Short, Darren Criss, Alan Cumming, Bobby Cannavale, Billy Porter, Cynthia Nixon, Tony Danza, Brian Stokes Mitchell, and many more.[54]

In 2016, Kirdahy produced the musical, Anastasia, on Broadway, after it set box office records in a run at Hartford Stage.[55] The creative team included Terrence McNally (Book), Stephen Flaherty (Music), Lynn Ahrens (Music), and was directed by Tony Award-winner Darko Tresnjak.[56][57] The musical ran at the Broadhurst Theatre on Broadway from March 23, 2017 to March 31, 2019.[56] The U.S. national tour launched in the fall of 2018, and the show continues to tour worldwide despite delays due to COVID 19.[58][59][60]

In the West End, he produced The Inheritance at the Noël Coward Theatre which opened in 2018 and ran until January 19, 2019. The two-part play by Matthew Lopez had a sold-out run at the Young Vic and Dominic Cavendish of The Telegraph called it "the most important American play of the century".[61][62] The play was directed by Stephen Daldry and featured John Benjamin Hickey and Vanessa Redgrave.[63] The production won 4 Olivier Awards for Best New Play, Best Direction, Best Actor, and Best Lighting Design.[64] He also produced, alongside Sonia Friedman and Hunter Arnold, The Jungle by Joe Murphy and Joe Robertson and directed by Stephen Daldry and Justin Martin. After a sold-out run at the Young Vic, the production began previews on June 16, 2018 at the Playhouse Theatre in the West End and ran until November 3, 2018.[65][66] His other productions in the West End includes the 2012 revival of Terrence McNally's Master Class, starring Tyne Daly as Maria Callas, and Edward Albee's The Goat, or Who Is Sylvia? starring Damian Lewis and Sophie Okonedo and directed by Ian Rickson in 2017.[67][68]

In 2019, Kirdahy opened Hadestown on Broadway at the Walter Kerr Theatre, where the New York Times described it as "Sumptuous. Hypnotic. Gorgeous," and the Wall Street Journal called it "the best new musical of the season."[3][69][70] The musical was nominated for 14 Tony Nominations on June 9, 2019, the most nominations received for any production, and won eight, including Best Musical.[71][10] The production is directed by Rachel Chavkin with music, lyrics, and book by Anaïs Mitchell.[72] He also produced a Tony-nominated revival of Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune by Terrence McNally starring six-time Tony winning actress Audra McDonald and two-time Oscar nominated actor Michael Shannon.[3][73][74] This new production, directed by Arin Arbus, opened on May 30, 2019 at the Broadhurst Theatre, and was a celebration of McNally's 80th birthday. McDonald called McNally "one of our great American playwrights."[74][73] The production was additionally notable as the first production in Broadway history to use an intimacy director.[75]

Kirdahy's 2019 off-Broadway revival of Little Shop of Horrors. won every Best Musical award it was eligible for, including the Drama Desk for Outstanding Revival of a Musical, the Drama League Award for Outstanding Revival of a Musical, and the Outer Critics Circle Award for Outstanding Revival of a Musical, a distinction it shares with the original 1983 production.[14][13][11] The 2019 production featured Jonathan Groff as Seymour, Tammy Blanchard as Audrey, and Christian Borle as Orin, with direction by Michael Mayer.[76]

Personal life

Kirdahy was married to legendary American playwright Terrence McNally following a civil ceremony in Vermont on December 20, 2003,[1][31] until McNally's death from COVID-19 on March 24, 2020.[77] They subsequently married in Washington, D.C. on April 6, 2010. In celebration of the Supreme Court's decision to legalize same-sex marriage in all 50 states, they renewed their vows at New York City Hall with Mayor Bill de Blasio officiating on June 26, 2015.[78][79]

Theatre credits

References
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