Theatre And Dance At Wayne State University Honors Jeffrey Seller With 2019 Apple Award At HAMILTON

The Maggie Allesee Department of Theatre and Dance, a program within the College of Fine, Performing and Communication Arts at Wayne State University, is thrilled to honor Michigan native and Tony Award-winning producer of "Hamilton," Jeffrey Seller, with the 2019 Apple Award on Wednesday, March 27 at the Fisher Theatre. A private, pre-show reception with Mr. Seller will be held at the Fisher Theatre before guests attend "Hamilton" that evening at 8 p.m.

On Thursday, March 28, Mr. Seller will meet with Wayne State University Theatre and Dance students for a conversation about his Michigan roots and his rise to one of Broadway's most-celebrated producers. This event will take place in the Studio Theatre at the Hilberry (4743 Cass Avenue, Lower Level, Detroit, MI 48201) at 11:30 a.m.

Jeffrey Seller is the winner of four Tony-Awards for Best Musical: Rent (1996), Avenue Q (2004), In the Heights (2008) and Hamilton (2016). Jeffrey also produced and/or developed De La Guarda (1998), Andrew Lippa's The Wild Party (2000), Baz Luhrmann's direction of Puccini's La Bohème (2002), High Fidelity (2006), the Broadway revival of West Side Story (2009) and Sting's The Last Ship (2014). Seller, along with former business partner Kevin McCollum, created the first Broadway lottery for Rent, which, for 22 years, has been a popular way to see Broadway shows, often in the first two rows, at an affordable price. He is the only producer to have produced two Pulitzer Prize-winning musicals--Rent and Hamilton.

Jeffrey was executive producer of the NBC Drama Rise (2018). He opened his new Broadway musical, The Cher Show, at the Neil Simon Theatre this past November. In addition to producing, he directed a new musical based on Jules Feiffer's young-adult novel, The Man in the Ceiling, at the Bay Street Theater and Fly at Dallas Theatre Center.

Jeffrey grew up in Oak Park, Michigan and is a proud graduate of the University of Michigan.

The Apple Award, named for Sarah Applebaum Nederlander, is given by the Maggie Allesee Department of Theatre and Dance at Wayne State University on behalf of the Nederlander family. In 2001, the Nederlander family formed a partnership with the College of Fine, Performing and Communication Arts at Wayne State University, establishing the Sarah Applebaum Nederlander Award for Excellence in Theatre; an annual theatre award and visiting artist fund in their mother's name. The Apple Award brings a nationally prominent theatre professional to Detroit and the Wayne State University campus as a guest lecturer to interact with and educate the rising stars of the Department of Theatre and Dance through master classes and a question-and-answer style forum. Previous Apple Award winners include Garth Fagan, Neil Simon, Carol Channing, Stephen Schwartz, Mandy Patinkin, Patti LuPone, Marvin Hamlisch, Elaine Stritch, Tom Skerritt, and Natasha Katz.

Additional information about the Apple Award is available online at http://theatreanddance.wayne.edu/theatre/apple-award.php