Isabelle Stevenson, who served as president of the American Theatre Wing for more than three decades and was, in the eyes of many, the enduring embodiment of the annual Tony Awards, died Sun., Dec. 28, in Manhattan. She was 90.
Each year, the television audience tuned into the Tonys and watched Stevenson, who became chairwoman of the Wing in 1998 after serving as its president since 1965, bedecked in a resplendent full-length gown and delivering, with unmatchable grace and polish, a short explanation of the organization and all it did for Broadway and beyond. She was also quite modest, for she herself was one of the theatre's most energetic, fervent supporters.
Born Isabelle Lubow to Russian immigrant parents, Stevenson was sent to dance classes by her mother at the age of 14 as a way to take off weight. Spotted by a producer, she quickly wound up in an edition of "Earl Carroll's Vanities" and then segued into vaudeville on the RKO circuit. In 1937, she married John Stevenson, then a newspaper man and later on a marketer of books and records. He died in 2002.
A little less than 20 years later, long after giving up her career in show business and beginning a family, Stevenson returned to the industry when she joined the board of the American Theatre Wing. In 1965, upon the death of Helen Menken, the organization's founding president, Stevenson was elected to the position and began working on an array of programs that will remain her legacy.
For example, she created the now familiar "Working in the Theatre" seminars, which convene several times a year at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York and are also broadcast on cable television. Under her tenure, the Wing began making annual cash grants to not-for-profit Off- and Off-Off-Broadway theatre companies, while yet another program, Theatre-in-Schools, brought professional theatre practitioners to high schools to discuss their stage careers. The same program provided scholarship funds designed to encourage high school graduates to follow their theatrical dreams, while a Hospital Program brought plays and cabaret shows to hospitals, nursing homes, and AIDS centers. And Introduction to Broadway, possibly Stevenson's most visionary idea, furnished high schools with super-low-cost tickets to many Main Stem shows.
As noted in The New York Times, Stevenson also pressed for Off-Broadway shows to be included in the annual Tony Awards, a move that so far has been resisted by the Wing, as well as the League of American Theatres and Producers, with whom the organization co-produces the honors.
In 1999, Stevenson received a special Tony Award for lifetime achievement. Two daughters, a niece, a foster daughter, two grandchildren, and one great-grandchild survive her.