Goodspeed to Honor Tony Walton at 2015 RAZZLE DAZZLE Gala This June

Goodspeed Musicals is thrilled to announce that Tony, Emmy and Academy Award-winner Tony Walton will be the latest recipient of The Goodspeed Award for Outstanding Contribution to Musical Theatre. Over the years, Mr. Walton's work has been represented on the Goodspeed Opera House stage in Where's Charley? (2004) and The Boy Friend (2005), and at The Norma Terris Theatre in Princesses (2004) and The Great American Mousical (2012).

Tony Walton will be honored on June 6, 2015 as Broadway luminaries and arts sustainers gather for Razzle Dazzle, Goodspeed's gala event to support its diverse education programs. A much-anticipated annual event saluting the best in musical theatre, Razzle Dazzle has become the place to be each summer. Razzle Dazzle will include cocktails, dinner and special entertainment at The Riverhouse at Goodspeed Station, 55 Bridge Street, East Haddam, Conn.

Executive Director Michael Gennaro said, "Goodspeed is thrilled to bestow this honor upon a great friend to the theatre, an extraordinary craftsman and one of the most esteemed scenic designers in film, television and on the stage. His exceptional work is marked by a unique vision and a vibrant use of color that radiates throughout his work. Tony Walton exemplifies all that the Goodspeed Award and this event celebrates."

This year's honoree is well known as Director, Costume and Set Designer for theater, film and television. As director and designer, Walton has been honored with 16 Tony Award nominations for his many Broadway sets and/or costumes. Pippin, House of Blue Leaves and Guys and Dolls won him Tonys; he was also the designer of the settings for the 10-year run of Madison Square Garden's annual production of A Christmas Carol. Among his twenty films, Walt Disney's Mary Poppins, Ken Russell's The Boy Friend,; Sidney Lumet's The Wiz and Murder on the Orient Express, together earned him five Academy Award nominations. Bob Fosse's All That Jazz won him an Oscar and Volcker Schlondorf's Death of a Salesman an Emmy.

"Need I say that it is a tremendous pleasure and really meaningful for me to receive this remarkable honor from Goodspeed, where I have had such happy experiences as both Director and Designer over the last 10 years or so. They have always made me and my family feel like part of their family, so I am beyond thrilled to receive this magnificent recognition from them," Walton said.

Previous honorees include Julie Andrews, Martin Charnin, Kristin Chenoweth, Ira Gershwin, Sheldon Harnick, Jerry Herman, William Ivey Long, Thomas Meehan, Michael P. Price, Gerald Schoenfeld, Stephen Schwartz, Susan Stroman, Charles Strouse, Tommy Tune and Paul Williams.

For tickets or to reserve a spot in the Razzle Dazzle Commemorative Journal, contact Mary Miko at 860.873.8664 ext. 368 or mmiko@goodspeed.org.

TONY WALTON is a Director and Designer honored with 16 Tony Award nominations for his many Broadway sets and/or costumes. Pippin, House of Blue Leaves and Guys and Dolls won him "Tonys"; he was also the designer of the settings for the 10 year run of Madison Square Garden's annual production of A Christmas Carol. Among his twenty films - Walt Disney's Mary Poppins, Ken Russell's The Boy Friend, Sidney Lumet's The Wiz and Murder on the Orient Express earned him 5 Academy Award nominations; Bob Fosse's All That Jazz won him the "Oscar" and Volcker Schlondorf's Death of a Salesman the "Emmy".

He has co-presented six productions in London -- three in association with his longtime friends, the multi-talented Richard Pilbrow and the legendary Hal Prince. His designs for Opera have been seen at London's Theatre Royal Covent Garden, Sadler's Wells and throughout Europe and America. His many Ballet designs include St. Louis Woman for Dance Theatre of Harlem and Peter And The Wolf and Sleeping Beauty for ABT, all three of which were initially presented at Lincoln Center.

For the last nineteen years, he has been the director - and often the designer - for many acclaimed productions of plays by Shaw, Wilde and Coward, along with new plays and musicals at the Irish Repertory Theatre, The Irish Arts Center, The York Theatre, San Diego's Old Globe and Sag Harbor's Bay Street Theatre, etc. In 1999 he ran away to join the circus, directing and co-designing Oops! The Big Apple Circus Stage Show, which happily toured 60 cities throughout the U.S. In 2010, he directed a celebrated production of Equus for East Hampton's John Drew Theatre at Guild Hall, starring the remarkable Alec Baldwin, with whom he also presented a fully staged-reading of Peter Shaffer's (as yet to be produced in the U.S.) Gift of the Gorgon at the same venue the following year.

For Goodspeed Opera House in 2004, he directed and designed the smash revival of Frank Loesser's Where's Charley?. In 2005 he designed sets and costumes for The Boy Friend directed by Julie Andrews, for whom, in 2012, he also designed Goodspeed's production of her musical The Great American Mousical; which originated as a book written by Julie and their daughter Emma Walton Hamilton, for which Tony had provided the illustrations. Also for Julie and Emma, he illustrated their series of twelve children's books about DUMPY THE DUMP TRUCK. Amongst his other book illustration work, his favorite is a Limited Editions volume of Oscar Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest and Lady Windermere's Fan. Additional graphic work consists of many magazine illustrations and caricatures for Playbill, Theatre Arts, Vogue, etc., and the posters for many Broadway and West End shows.

In 1991 he was elected to the Theatre Hall of Fame.

Photo Credit: Walter McBride