The recipient of the 2020 Tony Award Honor for Excellence in Theatre, Irene Gandy‘s work on Broadway began over 50 years ago, as a publicist with Douglas Turner Ward and Robert Hooks’ Negro Ensemble Company. Since then, she has worked on over 100 Broadway shows, including August: Osage County, Glengarry Glen Ross, Radio Golf, Bubbling Brown Sugar, Smokey Joe’s Cafe, Lena Horne: The Lady and her Music, Me and My Girl, Spring Awakening, Talk Radio, Speed-The-Plow, Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson, Chinglish, The Glass Menagerie, The Heidi Chronicles, Thoughts of a Colored Man, The Great Society, American Son, Fiddler on the Roof, You Can’t Take It With You, and The Wiz, among others. She has worked with producer Jeffrey Richards for over three decades; their recent credits include Purlie Victorious starring Leslie Odom, Jr. and Ohio State Murders, The Gershwins’ Porgy and Bess, and Lady Day At Emerson Bar and Grill, all starring Audra McDonald. She is the only Black female press agent with membership in the Association of Theatrical Press Agents and Managers, and is the recipient of the National Action Network’s Woman of Excellence Award, the Vanguard Award from Black to Broadway Productions, the Black Public Relations Society Award, the Pioneer Award for Black Pride NYC, and the Café Mocha Media Legend Award. In 2018, she was honored with the Vivian Robinson/AUDELCO Pioneer Award for Excellence in Black Theatre. In 2019, she was honored with the NAACP-LGBTQ David Weaver Prize for Excellence in the Arts; a year later, she was inducted into New York Public Lincoln Center Performing Arts Library as part of The League of Professional Theatre Women’s Oral History Project. In 2008, she became the first female press agent to be immortalized with a Sardi’s caricature.