Mr. Weitzenhoffer is a highly acclaimed independent producer of New York and London theatre productions. On Broadway he has won two Tony Awards for producing The Will Rogers Follies and Dracula. He was awarded the 2001 Olivier Award (England’s equivalency of the Tony) for producing Defending the Caveman. Other Broadway and West End productions to his credit include Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Song & Dance, Pump Boys & Dinettes, Blood Knot, Burn This, and Largely, New York. In London’s West End he has produced the highly acclaimed revival of the classic Medea, which won the 2001 Evening Standard Award for both Best Actress Fiona Shaw and Best Director Deborah Warner. Additionally, he has produced the revivals of A Little Night Music with Catherine Zeta-Jones, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest starring Christian Slater, A Moon for The Misbegotten starring Kevin Spacey, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? staring Kathleen Turner and Bill Irwin and a new satire on the current British government called Feel Good, which won the Evening Standard Award for Best Comedy. Off-Broadway he produced Three Guys Naked From the Waist Down, The Road To Mecca, and Eating Raoul.
In the winter of 2001, Mr. Weitzenhoffer purchased the Vaudeville Theatre on London’s Strand Avenue and has since reorganized the Theatre’s general management business. During the summer of 2005, following extensive negotiations, Mr. Weitzenhoffer purchased four additional West End theatres in London from Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber including the Apollo, the Duchess, the Lyric and the Garrick. On January 5, 2006, The Stage Magazine listed him as one of the top five most powerful people in West End Theatre.
Mr. Weitzenhoffer is involved with or has served many professional organizations including a Trustee of the American Academy of Dramatic Arts, President of New Dramatists, Director of Theatre Works USA, an officer with the Stage Directors and Choreographers Foundation, President of Circle Repertory Company, and a member of the League of New York Theatres and Producers.
As a graduate of The University of Oklahoma’s School of Drama, Mr. Weitzenhoffer has been the largest contributor to OU fine and performing arts. In 1998, Mr. Weitzenhoffer provided the funding to begin The Weitzenhoffer Department of Musical Theatre at OU, a program that has quickly risen to become one of the most prestigious training grounds for musical theatre artists in the country. In 2000, Mr. Weitzenhoffer bestowed the university with his late mother, Clara’s, collection of twenty-two Impressionist paintings. The collection contains the work of Auguste Renoir, Claude Monet and Vincent Van Gogh among many others, it is the largest single gift in OU history and the most important donation of French Impressionism art ever made to a public university. Governor Brad Henry appointed Mr. Weitzenhoffer to a seven-year term as a University of Oklahoma Regent in 2003. Mr. Weitzenhoffer has since been reappointed for an additional term. On March 25, 2004, the Board of Regents unanimously chose to rename the College of Fine Arts, which encompasses the Schools of Drama, Dance, Art and Musical Theatre, “The Weitzenhoffer Family College of Fine Arts” in honor of Mr. Weitzenhoffer’s unequaled contribution to the fine and performing arts at the University of Oklahoma. Awards from the University of Oklahoma included the 1992 Regents Alumni Award, the 1988 Alumni Association’s Distinguished Service Citation and an Honorary Doctorate during the 2000 Commencement ceremonies. In 1994 Mr. Weitzenhoffer was inducted into the Oklahoma Hall of Fame.
