Rachel Chavkin, only female director nominated for Tony Award this year, wins for ‘Hadestown'

NEW YORK CITY — The only female director nominated for a Tony Award this year, Rachel Chavkin, won the best director award for a musical at the ceremony Sunday night at New York's Radio City Music Hall.

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In the two categories for direction, best musical and best play, Chavkin, 38, was the sole woman nominated for the prestigious Broadway honor this year, and in a rare win for a woman director, she won for the musical “Hadestown.”

She was up against some tough competition, too, beating out heavyweights Scott Ellis for “Tootsie,” Daniel Fish for “Oklahoma!” Des McAnuff for “Ain’t Too Proud: The Life and Times of the Temptations” and Casey Nicholaw for “The Prom.”

“Hadestown” is a reimagining of the Greek Orpheus myth and opened on Broadway in April.

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"It is amusing to me that I am a Broadway director because that is so far from my conception of myself, but, at the same time, I'm acutely aware of how privileged I am to be making a living making work that moves the hell out of me," she told The New York Times in an interview in March.

Chavkin also received a Tony nomination for her last musical, “Natasha, Pierre & the Great Comet of 1812,” which opened on Broadway in 2016.

She’s a graduate of New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts and received a master’s degree from Columbia School of the Arts.

Cox Media Group