Michael Douglas recalled thinking that when Preston Whiteway met with the Eugene O’Neill Theater Center’s board he was in the wrong job interview because he looked so young. (Whiteway was 25 when he became the center’s executive director in 2007; Douglas, an O’Neill alum, is a longtime O’Neill Board of Trustees member.)

Judith Light praised Whiteway’s “enthusiasm, his skill, his passion for his work, his empathy and connection to all at the O’Neill.”

Lin-Manuel Miranda joked that he always thought “Preston Whiteway” was the “whitest name I’ve ever heard” and then pointed out that Whiteway was instrumental in helping Miranda and his family establish a scholarship fund for artists of color studying at the O’Neill’s National Theater Institute.

Whiteway was honored by those luminaries and more as he was given the O’Neill’s Monte Cristo Award during a virtual gala on Sunday. The award recognizes a prominent artist whose work has made an impact on the American theater. The ceremony was originally scheduled to take place in April in New York City, but the pandemic caused the postponement and the eventual move to online.

That didn’t make the event any less celebratory. Everyone lauded Whiteway, who worked at the O’Neill in Waterford for 16 years, first as general manager at age 22 in 2004 and then, starting in 2007, as the center’s leader. He left this summer to take a job as a creative development consultant with Tribeca Productions.

During the gala, it was announced that the O’Neill is creating a scholarship fund in Whiteway’s name, with all the money raised Sunday night going toward permanently endowing that scholarship.

Whiteway, who accepted the award live from the O’Neill’s Blue Gene’s Pub, was clearly moved by the scholarship. Then, in discussing his favorite parts of running the O’Neill, he mentioned watching a writer see his or her own play going up for the first time in front of an audience, and seeing students find a new passion during their time at NTI that they make it their careers.

And, he said, another of his favorite aspects of the O'Neill is “the people. I can feel myself getting emotional. Our artists, writers, students, puppeteers and critics. Our members, donors, supporters and neighbors. And our trustees and staff team members. You make this place so special, so fun and a joy to come to every day. You have become friends and my family.”

He said the future is bright for the O’Neill; Tiffani Gavin is the center’s new executive director.

“It was a privilege of a lifetime to lead this magical place,” Whiteway said.

He added, “Thank you all for supporting the O’Neill tonight, but going forward, we need you. Support new work and new artists. Say yes to the O’Neill. I did, and it changed my life.”

After Whiteway was done speaking, virtual viewers could hear cheers; NTI students had gathered in their socially distanced pods outside Blue Gene’s to give Whiteway an applause-filled send-off.

Speakers at the gala talked in their pre-recorded segments about Whiteway’s many and varied accomplishments at the O’Neill. Board Chairman Tom Viertel said that Whiteway has captained the O’Neill to new heights. There was the major expansion, with nine new buildings going up on the center’s campus, along with the creation of an NTI music theater curriculum. Viertel noted that five of the six current conference artistic directors were hired during Whiteway’s time at the O’Neill, and those conferences have produced “so many wonderful new works and new voices.” He said, too, that one of Whiteway’s great successes is the O’Neill’s strong relationship with its hometown of Waterford, as well as the entire state of Connecticut.

“My relationship with Preston has been one of mentorship, and then partnership, and then admiring his leadership,” Viertel said.

During Whiteway's tenure, the O'Neill received the National Medal of Arts in 2016 from President Barack Obama and the Regional Theatre Tony Award in 2010.

In praise of Preston

The gala featured performers singing numbers from shows that were developed at the O’Neill, along with such whimsical moments as a comic video of the Monte Cristo Award — a copy of the sculpture of Eugene O’Neill as a boy that sits on the New London waterfront — scrambling around the Whaling City trying to find Whiteway.

And here is more of what Douglas, Light (who first acted at the O’Neill’s National Playwrights Conference in 1977) and Miranda (who developed “In the Heights” at the O’Neill’s National Music Theater Conference in 2005) had to say:

Douglas said, “Bravo! Bravo, Preston! … Thank you on behalf of all of our friends and supporters of the O’Neill for the phenomenal job — phenomenal job — that you’ve done in 16 years in all the different divisions and departments and the amount of attention that you brought to the O’Neill worldwide.”

Light recalled meeting Whiteway at an O’Neill alumni gathering in New York City and said Whiteway was and still is “staggeringly handsome, wildly articulate, infinitely gracious — and he will kill me for saying this, but it’s too bad, honey, it’s your night and it’s true.”

She added, “He gave continuously of himself with deep generosity and always inspiring the artists, the staff, the friends, and the trustees of the O’Neill.”

Miranda spoke about his family’s scholarship fund for students of color at the O’Neill’s NTI and said that Whiteway has “been more instrumental than anyone in making sure the O’Neill is full of incredible artists of color who are going to shape the American theater landscape for years to come … (Those artists) give us hope for what the future of a more diverse and inclusive theater and arts industry will look like going forward.”

Miranda discussed his family’s scholarship fund and said none of it would have been possible without Whiteway’s drive and energy. He said it’s been an honor working with Whiteway. 

k.dorsey@theday.com