Michael Mayer, who won the Tony for directing Spring Awakening, will receive the Stage Directors and Choreographers Foundation’s 2027 “Mr. Abbott” Award, the honor directors and choreographers bestow on one of their own for outstanding work on Broadway.
The award will be presented at the Foundation’s gala at Gotham Hall in New York City on Monday, March 22, 2027, at 6 p.m. Tom Hulce, Johanna Pfaelzer, Jordan Roth and Ellenore Scott are co-chairing the evening, which Lorin Latarro will direct from a script by Dick Scanlan. Proceeds support the programs of the Foundation (SDCF), the not-for-profit arm of the Stage Directors and Choreographers Society.
The prize arrives with Mayer in the middle of a busy season. He is in rehearsal for Galileo, the original musical that premiered at Berkeley Repertory Theatre in 2024 and opens at the Shubert Theatre on December 6, while his Off-Broadway revival of Little Shop of Horrors at the Westside Theatre has recently become the longest-running staging in that show’s history. His other recent Broadway credits are Chess, Swept Away and Funny Girl.
The 2007 Tony for Best Direction of a Musical came for Spring Awakening, and the wider Broadway résumé runs from Side Man and A View from the Bridge through Thoroughly Modern Millie, Hedwig and the Angry Inch, American Idiot and A Beautiful Noise. Away from Broadway he directed the Metropolitan Opera’s world premieres of Nico Muhly’s Marnie and Jeanine Tesori’s Grounded, and the pilot and first season of television’s Smash.
Hulce, who has worked with Mayer on close to a dozen projects, traces his admiration to 1998, when he saw Side Man, A View from the Bridge and Stupid Kids “in one amazing season.” SDCF President Leigh Silverman singled out the shape of his career: “Michael Mayer has spent his extraordinary, entirely freelance, career expanding our sense of what is possible onstage.” She also credited his service on the SDC executive board and his commitment to mentorship within the Foundation’s community.
“While I could never hope to fill the great George Abbott’s shoes, receiving the ‘Mr. Abbott’ award from my peers is a true honor,” Mayer said. “I’m profoundly grateful to SDCF for this recognition.”
The award takes its name from the director George Abbott. Last year it went to Bartlett Sher; earlier recipients include Bob Fosse, Harold Prince, Mike Nichols, Susan Stroman, Julie Taymor, George C. Wolfe and Jerry Zaks.
