Susan P. Stroman (born October 17, 1954) is an American theatre director, choreographer, and performer. Her notable theater productions include Oklahoma!, The Music Man, Crazy for You, Contact, The Producers, The Frogs, The Scottsboro Boys, Bullets Over Broadway, POTUS: Or, Behind Every Great Dumbass Are Seven Women Trying to Keep Him Alive, and New York, New York.
She is a five-time Tony Award winner, four for Best Choreography and one as Best Director of a Musical for The Producers. In addition, she is a recipient of two Laurence Olivier Awards, five Drama Desk Awards, eight Outer Critics Circle Awards, two Lucille Lortel Awards, and the George Abbott Award for Lifetime Achievement in the American Theater. She is a 2014 inductee in the American Theater Hall of Fame in New York City.
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Early years
Stroman was born in Wilmington, Delaware, the daughter of Frances (née Nolan) and Charles Harry Stroman. She was exposed to show tunes by her piano-playing salesman father. She began studying dance, concentrating on jazz, tap, and ballet at the age of five. She studied under James Jamieson at the Academy of the Dance in Wilmington. She majored in English at the University of Delaware. She performed, choreographed and directed at community theaters in the Delaware and Philadelphia area.
After graduating in 1976, she moved to New York City. Her first professional appearance was in Hit the Deck at the Goodspeed Opera House in 1977. Later that year she was cast in the role of Hunyak in the National tour of Chicago, which marked her first time working with composer John Kander and lyricist Fred Ebb.
Her first Broadway credit was as an ensemble member in the 1979 musical Whoopee!. In 1980 she was assistant director, assistant choreographer, and dance captain for the Broadway show Musical Chairs. Wanting to direct and choreograph instead of perform, Stroman concentrated on creating for the theater. She worked in small venues as a director and choreographer in various industrial shows, club acts and commercials.
Career
Theatre
Stroman's big break as a choreographer came in 1987 with the Off-Broadway revival of Flora the Red Menace (music by John Kander and Fred Ebb) at the Vineyard Theatre. Her work there was seen by Hal Prince, who hired her to create the dance sequences for his New York City Opera production of Don Giovanni.
Her relationship with Kander and Ebb led to co-creating, along with Scott Ellis and David Thompson, the 1991 hit Off-Broadway musical And the World Goes 'Round. In 1992 she went on to choreograph Liza Stepping Out at Radio City Music Hall starring Liza Minnelli, receiving an Emmy nomination for her work. Later that year she earned her third Broadway credit for her collaboration with director, and then-future husband, Mike Ockrent on Crazy for You. The show won the Tony Award for Best Musical and she won her first Tony Award for Best Choreography.
In 1994, Stroman won her second Tony Award when she collaborated with Prince on a revival of Show Boat, where she used some of her most innovative ideas. She added several dance montages to the show, complete with a revolving door, to help guide the audience through the generations that are covered in the show. Stroman heavily researched the period in which the show takes place and learned that African-Americans are credited for inventing the Charleston. She used that information in designing the montages, as the popular dance is introduced by and eventually appropriated from the black characters. In 1994, Stroman collaborated again with her husband Mike Ockrent on the holiday spectacular A Christmas Carol at Madison Square Garden, which ran for 10 years, and the Broadway musical Big, The Musical (1996). She returned to her collaboration with Kander and Ebb, Ellis and Thompson on the Broadway musical Steel Pier (1997). In 1999, her choreography of Oklahoma!, directed by Trevor Nunn at the Royal National Theatre, won Stroman her second Olivier Award for her outstanding choreography. Stroman's husband Mike Ockrent died from leukemia on December 2, 1999.
She immersed herself in her work and directed and choreographed her first Broadway show as director, the 2000 revival of The Music Man. At the same time, Stroman was approached by Lincoln Center Theater's artistic director André Bishop, who offered assistance with developing the project of her choice. She and John Weidman, who had written the book for Big, began working on what would become the three-part "dance play" Contact, which she choreographed as well as directed. The show opened at Lincoln Center's Mitzi Newhouse Theater in the fall of 1999, and later transferred to the larger Vivian Beaumont Theater, where it was reclassified as a musical. It won the 2000 Tony Award for Best Musical. Stroman won her third Tony Award for best choreography. Contact won a 2003 Emmy Award for Outstanding Classical Music-Dance Program when a live broadcast of the show appeared as an episode of PBS's Live from Lincoln Center. For Lincoln Center Theater, Stroman went on to direct and choreograph Thou Shalt Not (2001) with music by Harry Connick Jr. and The Frogs (2004) with book by Nathan Lane.
Dance
In 2004, Stroman was the first woman to choreograph a full-length ballet for New York City Ballet. Double Feature, with music by Irving Berlin and Walter Donaldson, is now in the New York City Ballet repertory.
Stroman had previously worked with New York City Ballet in 1999, when she created Blossom Got Kissed, featuring the music of Duke Ellington, to celebrate the company's 50th Anniversary season. She later revisited the piece, choreographing three additional short dances to be performed alongside the original. This new expanded ballet entitled For the Love of Duke premiered in May 2011.
In 1997 she created But Not for Me for the Martha Graham Company, using the music of George Gershwin.
The world premiere of Take Five…More Or Less with The Pacific Northwest Ballet opened in 2008. Stroman combined jazz music by Dave Brubeck and classical pointe work. The ballet is now in their repertoire.
Television
She appeared as herself in Season Four of the HBO series Curb Your Enthusiasm, directing Larry David and David Schwimmer in a production of the Broadway hit musical The Producers. In 2017 she returned to the show, choreographing Larry David's musical Fatwa!, starring Lin-Manuel Miranda as Salman Rushdie.
She has also made multiple appearances as herself on the Food Network's Barefoot Contessa program, as she is a close friend of its host, Ina Garten.
Film
Stroman received the American Choreography Award for her work on Columbia Pictures' film Center Stage (2000). In 2005, she directed the film version of The Producers.
Stage productions
Theater
1980 Musical Chairs (1980 Musical) (Assistant Director/Choreographer) (Broadway)
1987 Flora the Red Menace (Choreographer) (Off-Broadway)
1989 Don Giovanni (Choreographer) (New York City Opera)
1990 A Little Night Music (Choreographer) (New York City Opera)
1991 And The World Goes 'Round (Choreographer) (Off-Broadway)
1992 Liza Minnelli – Stepping Out At Radio City (Choreographer)
1992 110 in the Shade (Choreographer) (New York City Opera)
1992 Crazy for You (Choreographer) (Broadway)
1993 Crazy for You (Choreographer) (West End)
1994 Show Boat (Choreographer) (Toronto/Broadway)
1994 Picnic (Choreographer of Musical Interludes) (Broadway)
1994 A Christmas Carol (Choreographer) (Madison Square Garden)
1996 Big (Choreographer) (Broadway)
1997 Steel Pier (Choreographer) (Broadway)
1998 Show Boat (Choreographer) (West End)
1998 Oklahoma! (Choreographer) (West End)
Accolades
Stroman received the Oscar Hammerstein Award for Lifetime Achievement in Musical Theatre for 2018, presented by the York Theatre Company. Other notable awards include Glamour Magazine's Woman of the Year Award (2001), The George Abbott Award for Lifetime Achievement in the American Theater (2002), and the Sackler Center First Award (2012) honoring extraordinary women who are first in their field.
She is a 2002 New York Public Library "Library Lion" inductee for Outstanding Achievement in Art, Culture, Letters and Scholarship and a 2014 inductee into New York City's Theater Hall of Fame.
In 2005 Stroman received an Honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters from the University of Delaware.