Meet Your 2006 Tony Award Nominators

Have you ever wondered who chooses the Tony Award nominees? What credentials qualify these 23 people to decide which actors, directors, writers, composers and designers get to compete for Broadway's biggest prize? Broadway.com put together a handy guide to the backgrounds of the folks who hold the key to Tony gold.

Victoria Bailey - Executive Director, Theatre Development Fund
Before joining TDF, which administers education programs and the popular TKTS discount ticket booth, Bailey was general manager at the Manhattan Theatre Club for 15 years.

Susan Birkenhead - Lyricist
A Tony nominee for her lyrics for Working and Jelly's Last Jam, Birkenhead most recently wrote the lyrics for Zhivago, currently in production at California's La Jolla Playhouse.

Stephen Bogardus - Actor
A Tony nominee for the role of Gregory Mitchell in Love! Valour! Compassion! which he also played on the big screen, Bogardus has a total of 10 Broadway credits, notably the musical Falsettos.

Edward Burbridge - Scenic Designer
A veteran scenic designer, Burbridge last worked on Broadway in 1991, when he did the sets for the short-lived play Mule Bone.

Ben Cameron - Executive Director, Theatre Communications Group
Prior to joining the not-for-profit theater advocacy group TCG, Cameron spent four years at the National Endowment for the Arts. He recently announced his intended departure from TCG to become Program Director for the Arts at the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation.

Kirsten Childs - Musical Theatre Writer
Childs is best known for writing the music, lyrics and book for The Bubbly Black Girl Sheds Her Chameleon Skin, which starred 2006 Tony nominee LaChanze in its off-Broadway production.

Betty Corwin - Retired Director of the Lincoln Center Library for the Performing Arts
Corwin founded The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts' Theatre on Film and Tape Archive in 1969 and, along with the archive, received a Tony Honor for Excellence in the Theatre in 2001.

Jacqueline Z. Davis - Executive Director, Lincoln Center Library for the Performing Arts
Davis took on her current position in 2000 after serving on many national arts committees and working at the University of Kansas.

Mercedes Ellington - Choreographer
Granddaughter of Duke Ellington, Mercedes Ellington started out as a performer and moved onto choreography, creating dances for several shows, including Broadway's Play On! in 1997.

Nancy Ford - Composer
Ford started her New York theatrical career as a pianist for The Fantasticks She composed the music for the short-lived 1973 Broadway musical Shelter and the long-running off-Broadway hit I'm Getting My Act Together and Taking It On the Road.

Andrew Jackness - Scenic Designer

Jackness has 11 Broadway shows, many off-Broadway shows and three Drama Desk nominations to his credit, working most recently in New York on off-Broadway's The Butterfly Collection in 2000.

Geoffrey Johnson - Casting Director Johnson's now-shuttered company, Johnson-Liff Associates, received a Tony Honor for Excellence in Theatre in 2003 and a Drama Desk Award for Career Achievement the same year.

Dana Ivey - Actor
An acclaimed stage veteran, seen off-Broadway this season in Mrs. Warren's Profession, Ivey has received Tony Award nominations for her work in The Rivals, The Last Night in Ballyhoo, Sunday in the Park with George and Heartbreak House.

Robert Kamlot - Retired General Manager
A general manager for many years who also served as an associate producer on the 1985 revival of Hay Fever, Kamlot's last Broadway production was 1996's Big.

Todd London - Artistic Director, New Dramatists
Former Managing Editor of American Theatre Magazine, London has been artistic director of the New Dramatists for 10 seasons. In 2001, he received a Tony Honor on behalf of the organization.

Brian Stokes Mitchell - Actor
Mitchell, who has won one Tony for Kiss Me, Kate and received three other nominations for Ragtime, King Hedley II and Man of La Mancha, currently serves as the president of The Actors' Fund of America.

Enid Nemy - New York Times Staff Writer
Nemy edited the Times' popular Metropolitan Diary and has most recently written obituaries for the paper. For a time, she wrote the paper's now-defunct "On Stage" theater column.

Peter Neufeld - Former General Manager
One half of the general management company of Gatchell & Neufeld, Ltd. which occasionally produced theatrical pieces, Neufeld received a Tony Honor for Excellence in Theatre in 2005.

Lynn Nottage - Playwright
A playwright who first gained recognition in the mid 1990s with plays such as Crumbs from the Table of Joy, Por'Knockers and Mud, River, Stone, Nottage made a big splash in 2004 when two of her plays, Intimate Apparel and Fabulation, had acclaimed runs off-Broadway.

Gilbert Parker - Retired Senior-Vice President of the William Morris Agency
A legendary agent with many big-name clients, Parker retired in December of 2000.

Jonathan Reynolds - Playwright & Screenwriter
Reynolds' plays include Geniuses and Stonewall Jackson's House; his screenplays include My Stepmother Is an Alien and Micki & Maude. More recently, he served as a food writer for The New York Times Magazine and cooked onstage during the 2003-2004 season in his one-man show Dinner with Demons at Second Stage Theater.

Jac Venza - Retired Executive, WNET
Known for his commitment to putting the performing arts on television, Venza created the shows Dance in America and Theater in America and oversaw many others, including Stage on Screen.

Franklin Weissberg - Retired Judge of the New York State Court of Claims
Not only did he serve on the New York State Supreme Court, but Weissberg is also the former attorney of two-time Tony winner Liza Minnelli.