Retirees Association

DDN: Tony Award nominations embrace work of Wright State grads

Joey Monda with Joe Deer

Excerpt from the Dayton Daily News

The nominations for the 75th annual Tony Awards, announced today and honoring Broadway excellence during the 2021-2022 season, contain two Wright State University connections in the coveted race for Best Musical.

Joey Monda, producer and owner of Sing Out Louise! Productions, is nominated as producer of “A Strange Loop,” Michael R. Jackson’s groundbreaking, Pulitzer Prize-winning portrait of contemporary Black queerness. “A Strange Loop” leads the pack with 11 nominations. Monda, a Youngstown native and 2012 WSU musical theatre alum, is a two-time Tony winner having produced 2019 Best Musical winner “Hadestown” and 2020 Best Play winner “The Inheritance.” He was also Tony-nominated as producer of 2020 Best Play contender “Slave Play.”

“It is so thrilling on a number of levels, including L Morgan Lee being the first openly trans person to ever be nominated,” said Monda.

Dayton native Law Dunford, a 2015 WSU acting alum, covered multiple roles as an understudy and swing performer in the critically acclaimed Bob Dylan jukebox musical “Girl From the North Country,” which received seven nominations. Dunford, currently in the MFA acting program at the Yale School of Drama, also appeared on Broadway in “Waitress.” He was collectively nominated for a Grammy Award this year as a member of the Broadway cast of “Girl From the North Country,” nominated for Best Musical Theater Album.

The 75th annual Tony Awards, hosted by recently minted Academy Award winner Ariana DeBose (”West Side Story”), will air live Sunday, June 12 from New York City’s legendary Radio City Music Hall on CBS beginning at 8 p.m. Exclusive content will be aired on Paramount+ beginning at 7 p.m.