The Regional Theatre Tony Award is a special non-competitive Tony Award given annually to a regional theatre company in the United States. Initially presented in 1948 to Robert Porterfield of the Virginia Barter Theatre for their Contribution To Development Of Regional Theatre, the Regional Theatre awards were next presented starting in 1976. The award is "based on a recommendation by the American Theatre Critics Association", and includes a grant of $25,000. As the American Theatre Critics Association has noted, no theater has won the award more than once, "testifying to the growing strength of professional theater nation-wide." One of the objects of the award is promoting what often amounts to the incubators of new productions.
Famous quotes containing the words theatre and/or award:
“To save the theatre, the theatre must be destroyed, the actors and actresses must all die of the plague. They poison the air, they make art impossible. It is not drama that they play, but pieces for the theatre. We should return to the Greeks, play in the open air: the drama dies of stalls and boxes and evening dress, and people who come to digest their dinner.”
—Eleonora Duse (1858–1924)
“The award of a pure gold medal for poetry would flatter the recipient unduly: no poem ever attains such carat purity.”
—Robert Graves (1895–1985)