The 2020 Tony Award Honoree for Lifetime Excellence, Irene Gandy began her Broadway career began in 1973, as a publicist with the Negro Ensemble Company. She has worked on over 100 Broadway shows, including Purlie Victorious, Ohio State Murders, The Piano Lesson, Our Town, August: Osage County, Glengarry Glen Ross, Radio Golf, The Gershwins’ Porgy and Bess, Lady Day At Emerson Bar and Grill, Bubbling Brown Sugar, Smokey Joe’s Cafe, Me and My Girl, Spring Awakening, Talk Radio, Speed-The-Plow, Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson, Chinglish, The Heidi Chronicles, Thoughts of a Colored Man, 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, and is the only Black female press agent in the Association of Theatrical Press Agents and Managers. She 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 Black Pride NYC Pioneer Award, the Vivian Robinson/AUDELCO Pioneer Award for Excellence in Black Theatre, and the NAACP David Weaver Prize for Excellence in the Arts. In 2008, she became the first female press agent to be immortalized with a Sardi’s caricature.<br><br>Irene is a passionate advocate for young artists. As the nationwide data in SDC’s Next Stage Report revealed, only 11% of directors hired on Broadway or in stock theaters identified as persons of color, despite being 44% of the U.S. population. The Irene Gandy Directing Assistantships were developed with the Drama League Directors Council, an advisory body of leading stage directors, leaders, educators, and film/tv professionals.