Next year the Arkansas Repertory Theatre celebrates its 40th anniversary season. Since its first season, the Rep has often programmed plays and musicals which have been recognized with the Tony for Best Play or Best Musical of the season.
Many other Rep productions have been titles which have also won Tony Awards in some Broadway production. But this list only looks at those which won or were nominated for the Tony for Best Play and Best Musical.
The first Rep production was The Threepenny Opera. While it did not win the Tony for Best Musical, it goes on this list because it received a Special Tony in 1956 for its production. The original production in the 1930s ran for just a few performances. So this production was not eligible for the Best Musical award. But it was so outstanding, it received a Special Tony.
That 1976-77 season also included a Best Play winner – The Persecution and Assassination of Marat as Performed by the Inmates of the Asylum of Charenton under the Direction of the Marquis de Sade, which took home the silver medallion for Best Play in 1966.
Other Tony Best Play winners produced by the Rep have been:
(Tony Year; Title; Rep season)
- 1949 – Death of a Salesman – 2012-13
- 1955 – The Diary of Anne Frank – 1977-78; 1981-82
- 1960 – The Miracle Worker – 2004-05
- 1963 – Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? – 1978-79
- 1965 – The Subject Was Roses – 1981-82
- 1973 – That Championship Season – 1984-85
- 1979 – The Elephant Man – 2008-09
- 1981 – Amadeus – 1995-96
- 1984 – The Real Thing – 1986-87
- 1985 – Biloxi Blues – 1987-88
- 1986 – I’m Not Rappaport – 1989-90
- 1987 – Fences – 2006-07
- 1990 – The Grapes of Wrath – 2000-01
- 1991 – Lost in Yonkers – 1994-95 (featuring future Tony winner Will Trice in the cast)
- 1993 – Angels in America: Millennium Approaches – 1995-96; 1996-97
- 1994 – Angels in America: Perestroika – 1996-97
- 1997 – The Last Night of Ballyhoo – 1998-99
- 1998 – Art – 2001-02
- 2001 – Proof – 2002-03 (written by LR Hall graduate David Auburn)
- 2005 – Doubt – 2007-08
- 2008 – August: Osage County – 2014-15
- 2010 – Red – 2013-14
- 2012 – Clybourne Park – 2013-14
Next season the Rep will produce Peter and the Starcatcher which was nominated for Best Play in 2012. Other Best Play nominees produced by the Rep include: Barefoot in the Park; Broadway Bound; Cat on a Hot Tin Roof; Crimes of the Heart; Frost/Nixon; The Gin Game; Glengarry Glen Ross; Having Our Say; Home; Lend Me a Tenor; A Lesson from Aloes; ‘Night, Mother; The Night of the Iguana; Noises Off; The Piano Lesson; The Rainmaker; A Raisin in the Sun; The Retreat from Moscow; Talley’s Folly; The 39 Steps; and A Walk in the Woods.
The Rep also produced House of Blue Leaves six years before it was nominated for Best Play at the Tonys. In addition, it produced All My Sons which received a Special Tony for playwright Arthur Miller at the first ceremony and is sometimes erroneously listed as being the Best Play of 1947. There was none that year.
The 1971 Best Musical Company was part of the Rep’s inaugural season in 1976-77. Other Tony Best Musicals winners produced by the Rep have been:
(Tony Year; Title; Rep season)
- 1951 – Guys and Dolls – 1989-90
- 1952 – The King and I – 2006-07
- 1956 – Damn Yankees – 1999-2000
- 1957 – My Fair Lady – 2004-05
- 1960 – The Sound of Music – 2001-02
- 1964 – Hello, Dolly! – 2007-08
- 1967 – Cabaret – 2001-02
- 1975 – The Wiz – 2011-12
- 1976 – A Chorus Line – 2005-06
- 1977 – Annie – 2002-03
- 1978 – Ain’t Misbehavin’ – 1984-85; 2004-05
- 1980 – Evita – 1989-90; 2010-11
- 1986 – The Mystery of Edwin Drood – 1988-89
- 1987 – Les Miserables – 2008-09; 2013-14
- 2003 – Hairspray – 2010-11
- 2004 – Avenue Q – 2012-13
- 2010 – Memphis – 2014-15 (produced at Rep and on Broadway by LR native Remmel T. Dickinson)
In addition, the Rep has produced staged concert versions of 1958 Best Musical The Music Man and 1973 Best Musical A Little Night Music in collaboration with the Arkansas Symphony Orchestra.
Next season the Rep will produce The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee which was nominated for Best Musical in 2005. Other Best Musical nominees produced by the Rep include: The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas; Blues in the Night; Chicago; Dreamgirls; Five Guys Named Moe; The Full Monty; Gypsy; Into The Woods; Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat; Mary Poppins; Next to Normal; Oh What A Lovely War; Once On This Island; Peter Pan; Pump Boys and Dinettes; Quilters; Side by Side by Sondheim; Smokey Joe’s Café; Stop the World, I Want To Get Off; Sweet Charity; West Side Story; and The Who’s Tommy.
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