Michael Yeargan Named 2019 Tom Killen Award Recipient

Michael Yeargan, two-time Tony Award-winning set designer and co-chair of the design program at Yale School of Drama, will be the 2019 recipient of the Connecticut Critics Circle’s annual Tom Killen Award, recognizing his long service and achievement to theater in the state, New York and internationally. The award will be presented June 3 at the Goodspeed Opera House in East Haddam at the 29th annual event celebrating and honoring the state’s outstanding professional theater. The event, scheduled to begin at 7 p.m., is free and open to the public. Yeargan is professor in the practice of design at the… read more

Michael O’Flaherty Named Recipient of 2018 Tom Killen Award

Michael O’Flaherty has been the man behind the music — and baton, too. Entering his 27th season as Goodspeed’s resident music director, O’Flaherty has guided more than 100 shows at the East Haddam and Chester theaters, several of them (“By Jeeves,” “Gentleman Prefer Blondes”) to Broadway. He’s also a key figure behind the Festival of New Musicals, as well as the composer for a new locally-rooted show: “A Connecticut Christmas Carol.” His expertise also goes well beyond Goodspeed, being the musical supervisor for productions at Paper Mill Playhouse, North Shore Music Theatre, Playwrights Horizons, Ford’s Theatre, the Kennedy Center, and… read more

Paulette Haupt Named Winner of 2017 Tom Killen Award

Since 1978, Haupt has served as artistic director of the National Music Theater Conference at the Eugene O’Neill Theater Center. In that capacity, she has selected and guided the development of more than 120 new musicals including Nine, Avenue Q, Violet, The Wild Party, In The Heights, and Darling Grenadine, which will be performed at Goodspeed Musicals’ Norma Terris Theatre in Chester later this summer. An associate producer for Polly Pen’s Goblin Market Off Broadway, Haupt has commissioned, developed, and produced new works for OPERA America, the National Alliance for Musical Theater, and Columbia Artists Management. Following her San Francisco… read more

Anne Keefe Named Winner of 2016 Tom Killen Award

WESTPORT — Anne Keefe, associate artist with the Westport Country Playhouse, who was part of the team that transformed the theater nearly two decades ago, will be presented this year’s Tom Killen Award from the Connecticut Critics Circle in June. The award, recognizing Keefe’s “years of extraordinary achievement and service to Connecticut theater,” will be presented at the Critic Circle’s 26th annual awards event at 7:30 p.m. June 13 at Hartford Stage. Keefe also has been a stage manager at Long Wharf Theatre in New Haven and various Broadway venues. Previous winners of the award include Lucille Lortel, founder of… read more