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NEW YORK CITY: The Broadway League introduced the honorees of the 2023 League Awards as a part of the thirty third annual Spring Road Conference. Since 1992, the League Awards have acknowledged those that have displayed exemplary service to the Broadway’s touring business and are considered innovators of their career.
This yr’s League Awards recipients embrace Gina Vernaci (Distinguished Lifetime Service Award), Chris Meyers (Outstanding Achievement in Road Group Sales), Kelli Palan (Outstanding Achievement in Road Marketing & Press), Scott Hemerling (Outstanding Achievement in Road Marketing & Press), Marisol Sánchez-Best (Outstanding Achievement in Education and Engagement), Ron Legler (Outstanding Achievement in Presenter Management), and Kara Gebhart (George MacPherson Road 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 Center for the Performing Arts), and the Boston Area Lexus Dealers Association.
“Congratulations to this year’s League Award honorees, who exemplify excellence in their endeavors of presenting and enriching Broadway in their hometowns,” stated Broadway League president Charlotte St. Martin in a press release. “Broadway is a vital national industry. During the 2022-23 season, touring Broadway reached an audience of more than 16.5 million with 39 shows touring in more than 180 cities. This would not be possible without the tremendous support and efforts of our members.”
Gina Vernaci not too long ago accomplished her tenure as president and chief govt officer of Cleveland’s Playhouse Square, the place she was accountable for all operations of the nonprofit performing arts heart. She has led initiatives which have helped to place Playhouse Square because the area’s premier cultural, vacationer, and leisure vacation spot and the nation’s largest performing arts heart, second solely to New York City’s Lincoln Center. Gina secured and constructed a Broadway collection for E.J. Thomas Hall on the University of Akron and continues to champion programming collaborations with libraries, faculties, resident firms, and space nonprofit theatres.
Chris Meyers, initially from Illinois, has been based mostly in Cleveland with Playhouse Square for the previous 20 years. After serving as season ticket supervisor for six years, Chris turned 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. In addition to his work for Playhouse Square, Chris at the moment serves as co-chair of the Broadway League’s Road Group Sales Committee and Forum Planning Committee.
Kelli Palan, director of regional engagement at Disney Theatrical Group, has been with the corporate since 2000. Over the previous 20 years, she has offered advertising and marketing and gross sales promotion to the North American excursions, together with Beauty and the Beast, AIDA, The Lion King, High School Musical, Newsies, Aladdin, and Frozen. Kelli additionally labored on press and advertising and marketing 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 and marketing of The Lion King and Frozen nationwide excursions. Born in Michigan, raised in Fort Lauderdale, and at the moment residing in New York City, he graduated from the University of Florida and is a member of the Association of Theatrical Press Agents and Managers.
Marisol Sánchez-Best 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 training and neighborhood engagement at Seattle Theatre Group. She beforehand labored at La Jolla Playhouse because the affiliate director of training. She has labored within the U.S. and Mexico as a theatre educator, actor, and instructing artist coach.
Ron Legler is a 28-year veteran of the business and simply celebrated his ninth yr as president of the France-Merrick Performing Arts Center, residence of the Hippodrome Theatre in Downtown Baltimore. After 9 years in group gross sales, Ron served as president of Florida Theatrical Association (FTA), presenting touring Broadway in Miami, Fort Lauderdale, and Orlando. Ron additionally served as president of Orlando’s Downtown Arts District and vice chairman of the Orlando International Fringe Festival. In 2022, Ron helped develop and go 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 Booking Group (TBG), the place she has labored to carry over 27 Tony-winning musicals and performs to theatres throughout North America, together with Rent, Mamma Mia!, The Producers, The Book of Mormon, Hamilton, and Six. She is an lively member of the Broadway League, at the moment sitting on the Broadway League’s Road Presenters/Intra-Industry Committee and the Spring Road Conference 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 known as the Triad.
Jim Pugh, the chairman of the Dr. Phillips Center for the Performing Arts from 2003–2022, has been a visionary on the arts heart since its unique inception in 2003. He dedicated his time, experience, persistence, and willpower to see the venture come to life. The Alexis and Jim Pugh Theater has hosted hundreds of regional artists and performances since opening in 2014. Under his management, the humanities heart opened the two,700-seat Walt Disney Theater to carry Broadway performances to new heights for the Central Florida neighborhood.
The Boston Area Lexus Dealers Association consists of six Lexus dealerships who’ve joined collectively to present again to the area people with sponsorship efforts. The Boston Area 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 business. The League’s 700-plus members embrace theatre homeowners and operators, producers, presenters, and normal managers in practically 200 markets in North America and internationally.