Director Cassey Kivnick Named Mike Ockrent Fellowship Recipient

Director Cassey Kivnick has been chosen as the 2015-2016 Mike Ockrent Fellow on Jerry Mitchell's Gotta Dance. Ms. Kivnick's fellowship will last the entire length of the production process, with pre-production and rehearsals on Gotta Dance beginning in November 2015 and continuing on until the spring 2016 premiere on Broadway. Ms. Kivnick will receive a $5000 award.

Mike Ockrent was a British stage director whose London productions were Once a Catholic, Educating Rita, Passion Play, Follies and Zenobia for the RSC. Ockrent also directed several productions of Me and My Girl, which earned him Olivier, Ivor Novello and Drama Magazine awards. On Broadway, Ockrent's Me and My Girl was nominated for 13 Tonys and earned him the Drama Desk Award for Best Director. In 1992, Ockrent worked with Susan Stroman on Crazy for You. They were married in 1996 and remained so until Ockrent's death from leukemia in New York in 1999.

Modeled on SDCF's prestigious Sir John Gielgud Fellowship in Classical Theatre, the goal of the Mike Ockrent Fellowship is to help early-career directors of promise develop their skills by working with a master director on the creation of a big-budget Broadway musical or play. The Fellowship, established in 2001, offers up-and-coming artists a remarkable education in creating theatre on a Broadway scale.

Previous recipients of the Ockrent Fellowship are Paula D'Alessandris on Sean Mathias's No Man's Land/Waiting for Godot, Alex Lippard on Jeff Calhoun's Bonnie and Clyde, Tomé Cousin on George C. Wolfe's A Free Man of Color, Gregg Wiggans on Rob Ashford's Promises, Promises, Elissa Weinzimmer on Casey Nicholaw's Minsky's, Jillian Loyas on Bob Avian's A Chorus Line, and Benjamin Kline on Scott Elliott's Barefoot in the Park.