Stephen C. Byrd and Alia Jones-Harvey are the recipients of the 2019 Broadway Global Producer of the Year award from Broadway Global. The Olivier Award–winning and Tony-nominated producers are the founders of Front Row Productions, established in 2006, which has worked to employ diverse talent, creative teams, and management for all of their productions.
Front Row Productions is currently represented on Broadway with Ain’t Too Proud: The Life and Times of The Temptations, which was nominated for 12 Tony Awards including Best Musical. Last fall, the company co-produced Christopher Demos-Brown's American Son, starring Kerry Washington, Steven Pasquale, Eugene Lee, and Jeremy Jordan, and, in spring 2018, was behind the Broadway revival of Eugene O’Neill’s The Iceman Cometh starring Denzel Washington.
Other Broadway shows to have come out of Front Row include the first-ever African-American production Tennessee Williams’ Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, directed by three-time Emmy winner Debbie Allen in 2008 and starring two-time Tony winner James Earl Jones, Tony winner Phylicia Rashad, Terrence Howard in his Broadway debut, and Tony winner Anika Noni Rose. The revival was the top-grossing play on Broadway that season and went on to transfer to the West End, where it won the 2010 Olivier Award for Best Revival.
Byrd and Jones-Harvey were also behind the Off-Broadway and Broadway premieres of Danai Gurira’s Eclipsed, starring Oscar winner Lupita Nyong’o; the 2013 Broadway production of Horton Foote’s The Trip to Bountiful; and Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, that same year, directed by five-time Tony Award nominee David Leveaux and starring Orlando Bloom in his Broadway debut alongside two-time Tony Award nominee Condola Rashad.
Byrd and Jones-Harvey are currently developing a Broadway-bound musical adaptation of Black Orpheus, based on both the original play by Vinicius de Moraes and the Oscar-winning film.
Previous winners of the Broadway Global Producer of the Year award include Tom Smedes, Catherine Schreiber, and Tom Kirdahy.
