Photo Coverage: Broadway's Best Honors Manhattan Theatre Club's Lynne Meadow

Manhattan Theatre Club celebrated Artistic Director Lynne Meadow's 40th anniversary as the visionary and artistic leader of the organization with a special tribute last night, June 18. The event will began at 6:30 PM with a VIP cocktail reception, followed by a 7:30 tribute event at the Samuel J. Friedman and a party at Copacabana. BroadwayWorld was on hand for the celebration and brings you photo coverage of the stars who came out to honor Meadow below!

Under Meadow's artistic direction, Manhattan Theatre Club has garnered hundreds of awards and the artists nurtured by her and the company have made MTC a world class theatre. Meadow has been MTC's Artistic Director since 1972 and with Barry Grove, MTC's Executive Producer and her producing partner of 37 years, she has accepted every major theatrical award on behalf of the company including Tonys, Obies, Lortels, Drama Desk Awards, etc. Meadow has directed dozens of new plays both on and off Broadway. Her Broadway directing credits include Margaret Edson's Wit; Donald Margulies' Collected Stories; the 2001 Tony Award-nominated production of Charles Busch's The Tale of the Allergist's Wife; Alan Ayckbourn's A Small Family Business; and Donald Margulies' The Loman Family Picnic. Her Off-Broadway directing credits include Alan Ayckbourn's award-winning Woman in Mind and Absent Friends; the Obie Award-winning Ashes by David Rudkin; Busch's Our Leading Lady; David Greig's The American Pilot; Ron Hutchinson's Moonlight and Magnolias; Marsha Norman's Last Dance; David Edgar's The Jail Diary of Albie Sachs; Principia Scriptoriae; Lee Blessing's Eleemosynary; Biography; Simon Gray's Close of Play; and Sally and Marsha.

Under her artistic leadership for the last three decades, MTC has produced five David Lindsay-Abaire plays including Rabbit Hole; six plays by Donald Margulies including Time Stands Still and Sight Unseen; Lynn Nottage's Ruined; nine plays by John Patrick Shanley including Doubt; two plays by David Auburn including Proof; nine plays by Terrence McNally including Love! Valour! Compassion! and Lisbon Traviata; five plays by Beth Henley including Crimes of the Heart; seven plays by Alan Ayckbourn including Woman in Mind and Absent Friends; Stephen Sondheim's Putting It Together; Ain't Misbehavin'; and Ashes by David Rudkin.

This season, Meadow has produced four productions on Broadway, all of which have received Tony nominations: Terrence McNally's Master Class (Best Revival of a Play), David Ives' Venus in Fur (Best Play, Best Actress – Nina Arianda), Margaret Edson's Wit which Meadow directed (Best Revival of a Play, Best Actress – Cynthia Nixon), and David Auburn's The Columnist (Best Actor in a Play – John Lithgow).

Her directing work includes: Margaret Edson's Wit; Donald Margulies' Collected Stories (with Linda Lavin and Sarah Paulson); the 2001 Tony Award-nominated production of Charles Busch's The Tale of the Allergist's Wife on Broadway (starring Linda Lavin, Michele Lee and Tony Roberts) at MTC, and in the U.S. national tour (with Valerie Harper); the Broadway production of A Small Family Business (with Brian Murray); Donald Margulies' The Loman Family Picnic; the Obie Award-winning Ashes by David Rudkin; Charles Busch's Our Leading Lady; David Greig's The American Pilot; Neil Simon's Rose's Dilemma (with Mary Tyler Moore); Ron Hutchinson's Moonlight and Magnolias (with Douglas Sills); Three Sisters (with Dianne Weist, Sam Waterston, Christine Ebersole and Jeff Daniels); Golden Boy; Marsha Norman's Last Dance (with Jobeth Wiliams); David Edgar's The Jail Diary of Albie Sachs; Principia Scriptoriae; The Wager; Absent Friends (with Gillian Anderson and Brenda Blethyn); The Pokey; Eleemosynary (with Eileen Heckart); Vikings; Bits and Pieces; Blur (with Polly Draper); Biography (with Piper Laurie); Park Your Car in Harvard Yard (with Ellen Burstyn and Burgess Meredith); Captain's Courageous (with Treat Williams); Artichoke (with Amanda Plummer); Catsplay (which transferred to the Promenade Theatre); Chez Nous; Simon Gray's Close of Play and Sally and Marsha (with Christine Baranski and Bernadette Peters).

Photo Credit: Kevin Thomas Garcia

Lynne Meadow

Lynne Meadow and Husband

Bernadette Peters

Charles Busch

Joanna Gleason

Michele Lee

JoBeth Williams

Alfred Uhry

Linda Emond

Doug Hughes

Lorenzo Pisoni, Boyd Gaines, David Rasche and Peter Friedman

Boyd Gaines, David Rasche and Peter Friedman

Erica Jonh and her guest

Donald Margulies