Alum Brian MacDevitt Wins Fifth Tony Award for "Book of Mormon"

 MacDevitt, class of '80, has had a 24 year- long association with Purchase College.  At first he balanced his career as a full-time professor and later, as his career took off, he was as a visiting professor and guest lecturer.  Over the years many of his students have worked on his Broadway and Off Broadway productions and went on to their own successful careers. 

Four former students are currently designing on Broadway this season, Kenneth

Posner '87, was also a 2011Tony nominee for Best Lighting Design of A Play for  Merchant of Venice. Others are Jeff Croiter, Jason Lyons and Jennifer Schriever.

He won a Tony in 2002 for Into The Woods, for the Pillowman in 2005. In 2007 he won for the Coast of Utopia, and shared the award with Kenneth Posner and Natasha Katz.  The trio also won a Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Lighting Design for Utopia. He won a Tony in 2009 for the play Joe Turner's Come and Gone.

A current Mac Devitt lighting design project is the world premiere of Chinglish by David Henry Wang at the Goodman Theatre in Chicago starring James Waterston, Jennifer Lim and Stephen Pucci. The comedy is about doing business in a culture worlds apart from our own.

Mac Devitt  is currently an Associate Professor at the University of Maryland.

Actress Edie Falco' 86 was also a Tony nominee for Best Performance by an Actress in A Featured Role for House of Blue Leaves.

The Memorial segment of the Tony Award show paid tribute to actors who have died and included a photo of former Purchase Dean of Theater Arts & Film Israel Hicks.