JON B. PLATT TO BE PRESENTED THE COMMERCIAL THEATER INSTITUTE’S ROBERT WHITEHEAD AWARD

Spanning just over two decades, Jon B. Platt has produced 28 Broadway productions. Angels in America: Millennium Approaches and Perestroika, won seven Tony Awards and the Pulitzer Prize, and he won the Best Play Tony Award for Copenhagen, God of Carnage and his most recent for The Book of Mormon, winner of 9 Tony Awards. In addition to being nominated for 14 Tony Awards and winning 5, Jon has received 8 Drama Desk Awards and 6 New York Outer Critics Circle Awards. 

This season Jon is represented on Broadway by Wicked, which continues to sell out in its 9th record-breaking year at the Gershwin Theatre, Venus In Fur, Death of a Salesman, Clybourne Park, An Evening with Patti LuPone and Mandy Patinkin, The Book of Mormon, and The Gershwin’s Nice Work If You Can Get It. His West End roster has included Wicked – now in its 6th year, The Children’s Hour, and Driving Miss Daisy. And Jon is credited for touring Blue Man Group outside of New York, now in its 17th year playing Boston’s Charles Playhouse.

CTI is the nation’s only formal program, which professionally trains commercial theatre producers. A joint project of The Broadway League and Theatre Development Fund, CTI was founded in 1981 by the late Frederic B. Vogel. The current program director, Jed Bernstein, took on leadership of the program in 2006. The five decade long career of legendary producer Robert Whitehead, who died in 2002, inspired this award. 

“Robert Whitehead loved his fellow producers who recognized great art and were willing to stand behind it, both financially and artistically. That’s the kind of producer Jon Platt is,” said Jed Bernstein, CTI’s Program Director.  

“Jon Platt’s contribution to the American theatre is astounding. Not only has he chosen wisely in his producing career, he is a Renaissance man who gives freely of his time and money to charities near and dear to his heart such as the Genessee House for victims of domestic abuse and the Big Brothers and Big Sisters Association,” commented Charlotte St. Martin, The Broadway League’s Executive Director.

“Jon Platt is a welcome addition to the talented group of producers who have been presented with The Robert Whitehead Award which honors the legacy of one of the greatest theatre producers of the 20th Century,” said Victoria Bailey, executive director of Theatre Development Fund.  “Jon is an inventive producer who has presented an exciting and diverse roster of new plays, new musicals and first-rate revivals.”   

The Commercial Theater Institute presented the first Robert Whitehead Award in 1993 to Benjamin Mordecai (seven August Wilson plays on Broadway) and Susan Quint Gallin (Angels in America, Monty Python’s Spamalot). Subsequent honorees include: Dennis Grimaldi (Other People’s Money, Annie Warbucks) in 1994; Kevin McCollum (Rent, West Side Story) in 1995; Randall L. Wreghitt (The Miracle Worker, Grey Gardens) in 1996; Marc Routh (A Little Night Music, The Norman Conquests) in 1997; Liz Oliver (Wait Until Dark, Last Night of Ballyhoo) in 1998; Eric Krebs (The Dinner Party, Electra) in 1999; Anne Strickland Squadron (Bill Maher: Victory Begins at Home, The Herbal Bed) in 2000; David Binder (A Raisin in the Sun, 33 Variations) in 2004; Nick Scandalios (Executive VP of the Nederlander Organization:Wicked, In the Heights) in 2008; Dori Berinstein (Legally Blonde: The Musical, Thoroughly Modern Millie) in 2009;  Stuart Thompson (A View from the Bridge, God of Carnage) in 2010; and Jill Furman (In the Heights, West Side Story) in 2011.