| Signature Theatre | |
| Formed: | 1989 |
| Location: | Arlington County, Virginia |
| Homepage: | https://www.sigtheatre.org/ |
| Genre: | contemporary musicals & plays, classic musicals, new works |
| Artisticdirector: | Matthew Gardiner |
Signature Theatre is a Tony Award-winning regional theater company based in Arlington, Virginia.
Cameron Mackintosh, Terrence McNally, James Lapine, John Kander, and Fred Ebb are among those that have presented works here. Since 1991, Signature has had a long relationship with Stephen Sondheim, having staged more than 30 productions of his musicals, revues and concerts—more than any other professional theater in the country.
Signature Theatre was founded in 1989 by Eric D. Schaeffer and Donna Migliaccio with Schaeffer serving as artistic director from the company's founding until his resignation on June 23, 2020, amidst multiple allegations of sexual harassment and assault.[1]
Signature began production in the Arlington County Gunston Arts Center.[2] This original venue was in the library of a middle school which had been converted to a black box theater.
Having rapidly outgrown the Gunston facility, Signature in 1993 acquired a defunct Auto Bumper Plating shop, AKA "The Garage", which was converted into a 136-seat black box theatre.
In 2007, in partnership with Arlington County, Virginia, Signature moved into its current facility, a $16 million theater complex in The Village at Shirlington.[3] [4] The first floor of the building houses the Shirlington Branch of the Arlington County Public Library,[5] the upper three floors house the theater. The complex has an industrial decor with exposed particle board, pipes and metal sheeting. The pair of state-of-the-art black box theaters are each built as a "square box within a square box, floating on hockey pucks. At $30 a puck. It is built like a soundstage."
In addition to the two performance spaces, the complex contains a lobby, meeting rooms, three rehearsal spaces, four individual dressing rooms, three shared dressing rooms, three showers, a cast greenroom, a separate orchestra greenroom, three kitchen areas, scene, prop, and costume shops.[6] The large lobby was named by donors Gilbert and Jaylee Mead in honor of Gilbert's late son Rob Mead.
On June 7, 2009, Signature received theater’s highest artistic honor – the 2009 Regional Theatre Tony Award[7] – in recognition of artistic excellence.
In 2009 the Theatre established the Stephen Sondheim Award to honor "those who have contributed to the works of Stephen Sondheim and the canon of American Musical Theater." The inaugural award was presented on April 27, 2009, to its namesake at a benefit gala featuring performances by Bernadette Peters, Michael Cerveris, Will Gartshore and Eleasha Gamble.[8] [9] [10] The award has since been presented at the Theatre's annual Sondheim Award Gala excepting a hiatus in 2020 and 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
| Year | Recipient | |
|---|---|---|
| 2009 | Stephen Sondheim | |
| 2010 | Angela Lansbury | |
| 2011 | Bernadette Peters | |
| 2012 | Patti LuPone | |
| 2013 | Harold "Hal" Prince | |
| 2014 | Jonathan Tunick | |
| 2015 | James Lapine | |
| 2016 | John Weidman | |
| 2017 | Cameron Mackintosh | |
| 2018 | John Kander | |
| 2019 | Audra McDonald | |
| 2022 | Carol Burnett | |
| 2023 | Chita Rivera | |
| 2024 | Nathan Lane |