WINSTON-SALEM – A North Carolina School of the Arts alumnus won a Tony Award on Sunday.

Joe Mantello won Best Direction of a Play for "Take Me Out,” which also won Best Play. One of the stars of the show, Denis O’Hare, won Best Performance by a Featured Actor in a Play.

Mantello studied acting in the School of Drama at NCSA, where he received a College Arts Diploma in 1984.

He also directed “Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune,” which was nominated for but did not win Best Revival of a Play.

This was Mantello’s third Tony nomination; he was previously nominated for Best Featured Actor for “Angels in America” and for Best Director for “Love! Valour! Compassion!”

Mantello had also won a Lucille Lortel Award for Outstanding Achievement Off-Broadway for Outstanding Director for “Take Me Out,” which had also won for Outstanding Play and which played at the Public Theatre before moving to the Walter Kerr.

Mantello makes the fourth NCSA alumnus/a to have won a Tony Award in the past four years. In 2001, Mary-Louise Parker won Best Actress for “Proof,” and Gary Beach won Best Featured Actor for “The Producers.”  Jennifer Ehle won Best Actress for “The Real Thing” in 2000.

Twyla Tharp, who was the NCSA commencement speaker on May 31, won a Tony for Best Choreography for her hit musical with Billy Joel, “Movin’ Out.” The show features four NCSA School of Dance alumni: Benjamin Bowman, Holly Cruikshank, John J. Todd and Keith Roberts, who was nominated but did not win for Best Featured Actor in a Musical. “Movin’ Out” also has an NCSA School of Design & Production alumnus, Michael “Jersey” Van Nest, in front of house lighting.

Several other NCSA alumni have been nominated for Tonys in the past; they include Tom Hulce (for “A Few Good Men”), Terrence Mann (for “Beauty and the Beast” and “Les Miserables”), and K. Todd Freeman (for “The Song of Jacob Zulu”), as well as Mary-Louise Parker (for “Prelude to a Kiss”) and Gary Beach (for “Beauty and the Beast.”)

Media: For more information, contact Marla Carpenter at 336-770-3337 in the public relations office at NCSA.

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