Ken Waissman is a Tony Award

Tony Award

The Antoinette Perry Award for Excellence in Theatre, more commonly known as a Tony Award, recognizes achievement in live Broadway theatre. The awards are presented by the American Theatre Wing and The Broadway League at an annual ceremony in New York City. The awards are given for Broadway...

-winning American

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 theatre producer.

Waissman's first Broadway

Broadway theatre

Broadway theatre, commonly called simply Broadway, refers to theatrical performances presented in one of the 40 professional theatres with 500 or more seats located in the Theatre District centered along Broadway, and in Lincoln Center, in Manhattan in New York City...

 credit was the 1971 Paul Zindel

Paul Zindel

Paul Zindel Jr. was an American playwright, author, and educator.-Early years:Zindel was born in Tottenville, Staten Island, New York to Paul Zindel,Sr., a policeman, and Beatrice Frank, a nurse; his sister, Betty Hagen, was a year and a half older than he. Paul Zindel, Sr...

 play And Miss Reardon Drinks a Little

And Miss Reardon Drinks A Little

And Miss Reardon Drinks A Little is an American play written by Paul Zindel and published by Dramatists Play Service.The story surrounds three sisters: Catherine, an alcoholic; Anna, a hypochondriac and Ceil, an attention-starved socialite.-History:...

with Estelle Parsons

Estelle Parsons

Estelle Margaret Parsons is an American theatre, film and television actress and occasional theatrical director.After studying law, Parsons became a singer before deciding to pursue a career in acting. She worked for the television program Today and made her stage debut in 1961...

 and Julie Harris

Julie Harris

Julia Ann "Julie" Harris is an American stage, screen, and television actress. She has won five Tony Awards, three Emmy Awards and a Grammy Award, and was nominated for an Academy Award. In 1994, she was awarded the National Medal of Arts. She is a member of the American Theatre Hall of Fame...

. The following year, while he and partner Maxine Fox were in Chicago

Chicago

Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...

, they attended Grease, a popular local play about high school life in the 1950s being performed at the Kingston Mines Theater in the Old Town section of the city. The two thought it would work better as a musical

Musical theatre

Musical theatre is a form of theatre combining songs, spoken dialogue, acting, and dance. The emotional content of the piece – humor, pathos, love, anger – as well as the story itself, is communicated through the words, music, movement and technical aspects of the entertainment as an...

 and encouraged its writers, Jim Jacobs

Jim Jacobs

Jim Jacobs is an American composer, lyricist, and writer for the theatre. He is known for writing the book, lyrics and music, with Warren Casey, for the stage and film musical Grease.-Career:...

 and Warren Casey

Warren Casey

Warren Casey was an American theatre composer, lyricist, writer, and actor. He is best known for being the writer and composer, with Jim Jacobs of the stage and film musical Grease.-Career:...

, to relocate to New York City

New York City

New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

 and embellish it with a score. The result was Grease

Grease (musical)

Grease is a 1971 musical by Jim Jacobs and Warren Casey. The musical is named for the 1950s United States working-class youth subculture known as the greasers. The musical, set in 1959 at fictional Rydell High School , follows ten working-class teenagers as they navigate the complexities of love,...

, which Waissman and Fox mounted off-Broadway

Off-Broadway

Off-Broadway theater is a term for a professional venue in New York City with a seating capacity between 100 and 499, and for a specific production of a play, musical or revue that appears in such a venue, and which adheres to related trade union and other contracts...

 before transferring it uptown. It garnered him his first Tony nomination. He was nominated again for Over Here!

Over Here!

Over Here! is a musical with a score by Richard M. Sherman and Robert B. Sherman and book by Will Holt. The original Broadway production was directed by Tom Moore and choreographed by Patricia Birch, with scenic design by Douglas W. Schmidt and costumes by Carrie F...

; the third time proved to be the charm when he won not only a Tony but a Drama Desk Award

Drama Desk Award

The Drama Desk Awards, which are given annually in a number of categories, are the only major New York theater honors for which productions on Broadway, Off-Broadway, Off-Off-Broadway compete against each other in the same category...

 as well for Torch Song Trilogy

Torch Song Trilogy

Torch Song Trilogy is a collection of three plays by Harvey Fierstein rendered in three acts: International Stud, Fugue in a Nursery, and Widows and Children First! The story centers on Arnold Beckoff, a torch song-singing Jewish drag queen living in New York City in the late 1970 and 1980s...

.

Other Broadway credits

• Agnes of God
  Agnes of God
  Agnes of God is a play by John Pielmeier which tells the story of a novice nun who gives birth and insists that the dead child was the result of a virgin conception. A psychiatrist and the mother superior of the convent clash during the resulting investigation...
  
  (1982)
• The Octette Bridge Club
  The Octette Bridge Club
  The Octette Bridge Club is a play by P.J. Barry. Set in Providence, Rhode Island, it focuses on eight sisters of Irish descent who meet on alternate Friday evenings to play bridge and gossip...
  
  (1985)
• Asinamali! (1987)
• Carrie - The Musical (1988)
• Street Corner Symphony (1997)

External links

• Internet Broadway Database listing