Classic Stage Company will honor Steven Pasquale, whose first production as a director is on its stage this month, and the Broadway press agent Adrian Bryan-Brown at its 2026 gala on Monday, November 16, at City Winery. Phillipa Soo, Beth Leavel, Milly Shapiro and Michael R. Jackson lead the list of artists appearing.
Daniel Goldstein directs the evening, and Christopher Fitzgerald and Greg Hildreth are its hosts. The company has also named Whitney Bashor, Simon Jones, Martyna Majok and Bailey Ryon among the guests, which makes for a wide spread of the theater: a Tony winner for The Drowsy Chaperone in Leavel, the writer of the Pulitzer-winning A Strange Loop in Jackson, another Pulitzer winner in Majok, whose Cost of Living took the drama prize in 2018, and in Jones the English actor who created Arthur Dent in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.
There is a small reunion folded into the bill as well. Shapiro and Ryon were two of the four girls who shared the title role when Matilda the Musical opened on Broadway in 2013, and who received a joint Tony Honor for it.
The timing of Pasquale’s award is hard to miss. His revival of Clifford Odets’ Waiting for Lefty, his debut as a director after a career spent mostly in front of an audience, opened at the company’s Lynn F. Angelson Theater on East 13th Street on November 2, and plays there through November 29, a week beyond its original closing date (opening-night photos). Soo, his wife, shared the stage with him in the Kennedy Center’s 2022 staging of Guys and Dolls.
Bryan-Brown’s honor recognizes a career spent on the other side of the curtain. He and Chris Boneau founded the press agency Boneau/Bryan-Brown in 1991, and the firm has represented a long run of Broadway productions since.
The night runs from cocktails to a seated dinner, tributes and performances, and the money raised goes to the company’s artistic and education programs. Its smallest ticket is $250, a balcony seat for the performance with bar access; places at the dinner cost $1,250 and $2,500, and tables run from $12,500 to $50,000. Reservations are taken on Classic Stage Company’s gala page, or through Weston Ganz at 212-677-4210 ext. 24.
