Alumna Celia Keenan-Bolger Wins Tony Award

Photographed at the Shubert Theatre by Caitlin McNaney for Broadway.com

Musical Theatre alumna Celia Keenan-Bolger (BFA ’00, musical theatre) received a 2019 Tony Award for Best Performance by an Actress in a Featured Role in a Play for her critically acclaimed performance as Scout Finch in Aaron Sorkin’s adaptation of To Kill a Mockingbird on Broadway. She received the award on the nationally broadcast 73rd Annual Tony Awards, which aired on CBS on June 9.

Keenan-Bolger competed against a prestigious group of actresses including Fionnula Flanagan (The Ferryman), Kristine Nielsen (Gary: A Sequel to Titus Andronicus), Julie White (Gary: A Sequel to Titus Andronicus), and Ruth Wilson (King Lear).

This was Keenan-Bolger’s first Tony Award win. She was previously nominated for the same award for Peter and the Starcatcher (2012) and The Glass Menagerie (2014). Keenan-Bolger also received a nomination for Best Featured Actress in a Musical for The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee (2005).

Dominique Morisseau Joseph Marzullo/WENN

Also nominated for a 2019 Tony Award was Theatre & Drama alumna Dominique Morisseau (BFA ’00, theatre) for Best Book of a Musical for her work on Ain’t Too Proud: The Life and Times of The Temptations, which follows the development of the legendary Motown group. This was Morisseau’s first Tony Award nomination, but she has earned a raft of other prizes including the MacArthur Foundation Fellowship.