HONORING EXCELLENCE AND ACHIEVEMENT
FOR TOURING BROADWAY

DISTINGUISHED LIFETIME SERVICE AWARD:

Jeff Chelesvig

SAMUEL J. L'HOMMEDIEU PRESENTER AWARD:

Jeff Loeb

GEORGE MACPHERSON ROAD WARRIOR AWARD:

Anita Dloniak

LEAGUE AWARD RECIPIENTS:

Joi Brook, Bob Bucci,and Jairo Ontiveros

STAR OF TOURING BROADWAY HONOREES:

Dr. Bonnie Knutson, Graeter’s Ice Cream, John Hazen White, Jr.,

Johnson Financial Group,and Zions Bank

The annual League Awards were held today during The Broadway League’s 2025 Spring Road Conference as esteemed members and partners were honored for their outstanding achievements in support of Touring Broadway. Since 1992, the League Awards have recognized those who have shown exemplary service to the Touring Broadway industry and are regarded as innovators in their profession.

This year’s League Awards recipients include: Jeff Chelesvig (Distinguished Lifetime Service Award), Jeff Loeb (Samuel J. L'Hommedieu Award for Outstanding Achievement in Presenter Management), Anita Dloniak (George MacPherson Road Warrior Award), Joi Brook (Outstanding Achievement in Road Group Sales), Bob Bucci (Outstanding Achievement in Road Marketing & Press), and Jairo Ontiveros (Outstanding Achievement in Education and Engagement).

Award presenters included: Nick Scandalios, Chief Operating Officer at Nederlander Producing Company of America, presenting the Samuel J. L’Hommedieu Award for Outstanding Achievement in Presenter Management to Jeff Loeb; Anita Dloniak, Press Agent/Marketing Director at Anita Dloniak and Associates, Inc., - presenting the Award for Outstanding Achievement in Road Marketing and Press to Bob Bucci; Susie Krajsa, President of Broadway Across America, presenting the Outstanding Achievement in Education and Engagement to Jairo Ontiveros; Anne McNiff-Gaeta, Director of Group Services at Segerstrom Center for the Arts, presenting the Award for Outstanding Achievement in Road Group Sales to Joi Brook; Sue Frost, Producer, Junkyard Dog Productions, presenting the George MacPherson Road Warrior Award to Anita Dloniak; Al Nocciolino, President of NAC Entertainment and John Ekeberg, Executive Director, Broadway & Cabaret at Denver Center for the Performing Arts, presenting the Distinguished Lifetime Service Award to Jeff Chelesvig.

The Star of Touring Broadway honorees include Dr. Bonnie Knutson, Graeter’s Ice Cream, John Hazen White, Jr., Johnson Financial Group, and Zions Bank.

"Touring Broadway is the cornerstone of how we share the magic of theatre with audiences across North America. In the 2024-2025 season, Touring Broadway recorded approximately 14.9 million attendances, connecting communities, supporting local economies, and inspiring audiences nationwide. Each season, the community demonstrates remarkable dedication, resilience, and creativity,” said Jason Laks, President of The Broadway League. “The League Awards shine a spotlight on the individuals and organizations who make that possible. These honorees exemplify the passion and innovation that continue to drive our industry forward.”

“The Company You Keep” was the theme for this year’s Broadway League Spring Road Conference as more than 950 attendees arrived in New York City, representing approximately 135 markets around the U.S. and internationally. The conference welcomed League members and their staff, including the presenters, producers, general managers, marketing and press directors, education coordinators, and box office and group sales teams who day in and day out make it possible to present Touring Broadway across the nation and around the world. The conference brings the community together to discuss the state of Broadway on the Road, celebrate recent accomplishments, and provide networking opportunities, all while looking ahead to the future.

2025 LEAGUE AWARD RECIPIENTS

DISTINGUISHED LIFETIME SERVICE AWARD

Jeff Chelesvig is President & CEO of Des Moines Performing Arts, an organization he has led since 1995. Under his leadership, Des Moines Performing Arts, which owns and operates the Des Moines Civic Center, has grown to present seven series, including the Willis Broadway Series. Jeff serves on the Board of Governors for The Broadway League, the national trade association for Broadway in New York and across the country. He is Iowa’s only voter for Broadway’s Tony Awards. Jeff is active with the Independent Presenters Network, a consortium of fellow touring Broadway presenters that invest in the development of new shows and served as President of the organization from 2019-2022. Jeff was born in Iowa and resides in downtown Des Moines.

OUTSTANDING ACHIEVEMENT IN PRESENTER MANAGEMENT

Samuel J. L’Hommedieu Award

Jeff Loeb is President of Broadway in Hollywood, overseeing the Hollywood Pantages Theatre and the Nederlander West Coast Regional Season Ticket Office (located in San Diego) that manages the season ticket operations for seven Nederlander Broadway touring markets. Jeff has been the chief strategist for Broadway in Hollywood’s dedication to patron loyalty, which catapulted their growth to 45,000 season ticket holders as well as record grosses for extended engagements of Wicked, The Book of Mormon, and Hamilton. Over the last 21 years, he has been privileged to work with over 225 Broadway touring productions and in 2019 expanded the Nederlander Hollywood theatrical footprint by presenting shows at the Dolby Theatre, home of the Academy Awards.

A volunteer both in the entertainment industry and in the Hollywood community at large, Jeff is currently an Executive Board member of The Broadway League, where he is a Tony® Voter, Board Treasurer for the Hollywood Walk of Fame Trust, and newly elected Board member of the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce. Jeff is President Emeritus of the National Alliance for Musical Theatre, a past member of the Hollywood Partnership (BID) Place Enhancement Committee, Vice President Emeritus for the Hollywood Police Activities League, and past Gala Chair for the Los Angeles Fire Department Historical Society and Museum. Jeff is also certified as an Advanced Referee for AYSO Soccer.

GEORGE MACPHERSON ROAD AWARD

Anita Dloniak has represented Broadway on the road for over 35 years! She was presented with "The Outstanding Achievement in Road Marketing Award" in 2000 by The Broadway League. Prior to becoming a Road Press Agent, Anita was the General Manager of the Theatre League of Cleveland, Inc. which was owned by Samuel J. L'Hommedieu. This company presented touring Broadway shows at various venues in Cleveland, Ohio. A frequent guest speaker at John Carroll University and Baldwin Wallace College lecturing on theatrical marketing and publicity, she is also a member of the Association of Theatrical Press Agents and Managers (ATPAM).

OUTSTANDING ACHIEVEMENT IN ROAD GROUP SALES

Joi Brook - As the Pittsburgh Cultural Trust’s first-ever Group Sales Manager, Joi Brook has been at the forefront of building and leading the department since 2002. Now serving as Senior Manager of Sales, she oversees all facets of group ticketing, from processing orders and crafting marketing materials to nurturing long-standing client relationships and identifying new opportunities for audience growth. Joi has formed a close partnership with her Group Sales Manager, Pam Howell, to research trends and develop long-range strategies that position the Cultural District as a key player in cultural tourism and group engagement.

Joi is a long-standing member of The Broadway League Group Sales Road Committee, with more than a decade of experience helping shape national group sales best-practices. She holds a degree in Design and Merchandising from Drexel University and spent nearly ten years living in Philadelphia—a city she still adores, even if it’s not the most “Pittsburgh thing” to admit. She especially misses being just an hour from the New Jersey shore.

Originally from Pittsburgh, Joi returned home in 2001 so her husband, Tom (a Philly native), could attend graduate school at Carnegie Mellon. They’ve been here ever since. Their daughter, Channing, currently attends Stanford University and rows on the Women’s Crew Team, while their son, Hayden, lives in New York City and works as an Asset & Wealth Management Program Analyst at JP Morgan.

Fun fact: Pam Howell joined the department in 2005 just as Joi was heading out on maternity leave—right as the Rockettes were rolling into town. The timing may have been chaotic, but the partnership helped shape what Group Sales is today.

OUTSTANDING ACHIEVEMENT IN ROAD MARKETING & PRESS

Bob Bucci, President, Marketing and Content. Bob oversees content for the John Gore Organization which includes Broadway.com and The Broadway Show with Tamsen Fadal, a weekly syndicated TV program airing in over 140 markets as well as the marketing efforts nationally for Broadway Across America, the foremost presenter of first-class touring musicals and plays in North America. Before joining the John Gore Organization, Bob came from National Artists Management Company (NAMCO) as the Vice President of Marketing handling the global marketing and sales efforts for CHICAGO THE MUSICAL along with the London premiere of FAT PIG. Prior to NAMCO, Bob was a Senior Account Executive at TMG – The Marketing Group (now ALLIED LIVE) – coordinating sponsorship opportunities, marketing, and promotional partnerships for a long list of Broadway clients. Bob was the Sales Director at Dodger Stage Holding Theatricals handling such Broadway titles as 42 ^ND STREET, BLAST, THE MUSIC MAN, INTO THE WOODS, and URINETOWN, working closely with tour and travel partnerships and programs for live entertainment.

OUTSTANDING ACHIEVEMENT IN EDUCATION AND ENGAGEMENT

Jairo Ontiveros is the Executive Producer & Dorothea Green Chair of Education and Community Engagement at the Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts of Miami-Dade County, where he oversees a multifaceted portfolio of programs that engage more than 80,000 K-12 students and thousands more adult learners a year in meaningful arts-learning experiences. Under his supervision, Arsht Impact education and community programs have achieved national recognition, including AileyCamp Miami, which received the 2016 National Arts and Humanities Youth Program Award, the nation’s highest honor for out-of-school creative youth development programs. His national leadership roles have included serving on the National Endowment for the Arts on its Arts Education Panel for Multidisciplinary Arts, the Audience Engagement Committee of The Broadway League and the National Association of Latino Arts and Cultures.

Since joining the Arsht in 2007, Jairo has led a significant expansion of the Center’s efforts to connect the Miami community with the arts. The Arsht now offers well over 200 education and community events each year, which serve more than 100,000 people. This includes cornerstone education programs such as Learning Through the Arts, an arts integration initiative that reaches Miami-Dade County Public Schools students with live theater; Jazz Roots: Sound Check, which provides high school music students behind-the-scenes interaction with the world’s finest jazz musicians; Accessing the Arts, a residency program that sends teaching artists into public schools to promote music, movement, and theater learning among students with disabilities; the Arsht Student Ambassadors program and AileyCamp Miami, a summer camp for at-risk middle school students. Ontiveros produces Arsht-commissioned new work that enhances the profile of Miami-based artists and master classes and residencies led by visiting artists as well as free family-friendly performances that connect young families to the performing arts. The effort has drawn a new generation to the Arsht and earned a “Kids Crown Award” from South Florida Parenting magazine.

Ontiveros has established himself as a respected voice in the arts and culture landscape, offering insights at local, national, and international industry gatherings such as the Performing Arts Center Consortium's "Minding the Gap: Navigating Ever-Changing Public Policy" session and the International Performing Arts for Youth conference and the Theater for Young Audiences international conference. Jairo also holds a first-of-its-kind distinction among his peers. In 2024, he became the first endowed chair at the Arsht as well as the first endowed position for an education and community engagement vice president at a performing arts center. His civic roles include serving on the Green Space Miami Advisory Committee since 2022 and volunteering for The Miami Herald’s Silver Knight Awards. He is a recipient of the 2014 South Florida Business Journal 40 Under 40 Honoree.

Ontiveros was raised in North Texas and earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts in theater, a Bachelor of Fine Arts in dance, and a Bachelor of Liberal Arts in Latin-American studies - all from the University of Texas, Austin. He has studied theory of cinema at Universitat Pompeu Fabra in Barcelona, Spain.

STAR OF TOURING BROADWAY AWARDS

The Star of Touring Broadway Awards honor board members, government officials, donors, and volunteers who have provided support to promote and enrich the Broadway Series in their hometowns.

● For more than 35 years, Dr. Bonnie Knutson has been a devoted advocate, volunteer leader, and philanthropist for Wharton Center for Performing Arts(East Lansing, MI), with a personal connection to Dr. and Mrs. Wharton, the Center’s namesakes. Her lifelong passion for musical theatre began in high school, when she starred opposite her future husband, Bob, in a production of Brigadoon — fostering a love of the arts they have passed down to their family. Together, she and Bob have made a profound impact on Broadway in East Lansing through annual philanthropy, a lead gift to the 2008 Wharton Center facility campaign, and the establishment of the Robert and Bonnie Knutson Endowment for Musical Theatre in 2013.

● When you think of iconic food brands in Cincinnati, one of the first that comes to mind is always Graeter’s Ice Cream. Since 1870, five generations of the Graeter family have remained committed to handcrafting only the most indulgent ice cream available. From humble beginnings serving ice cream from a cart in Cincinnati to the nationwide presence of Graeter’s Ice Cream today, the family has stayed true to the traditional “French Pot” method and is the only company in the world that still makes ice cream at scale this way. Graeter’s has become a worldwide favorite outside of Cincinnati (Oprah declared it the best ice cream she’d ever tasted), but remains an icon of everyday life and celebrations for Cincinnatians. Graeter’s has 50+ retail stores and ships more than 300,000 pints annually. The brand can also be found in more than 2,000 grocery stores across the U.S.

Graeter’s is a key community partner for the First Financial Bank Broadway in Cincinnati season presented by TriHealth. The sweet results of this friendship have included stocking the Company Management freezer full of ice cream for every Broadway touring company that comes to the Aronoff Center and custom Broadway-themed ice cream creations designed by Graeter’s and sold in stores leading up to engagements at the Aronoff. Broadway in Cincinnati and Graeter’s have also partnered on a social media video series featuring Broadway tour cast members scooping up ice cream at the Graeter’s retail shop with interviews and tutorials that has garnered over 340,000 Instagram views to date.

● John Hazen White, Jr. is Executive Chairman and Owner of Taco (Tay-co) Group Holdings, Inc. which is a half billion-dollar, world-class manufacturer of heating and cooling equipment, headquartered in Cranston, Rhode Island.

A native of Providence, John represents the third generation of his family to own and operate Taco; he built his career with the company over the past 45 years and has not only fostered its growth in Rhode Island but has expanded the company’s operations in North America, Europe and Asia.

Through John’s life-long commitment to supporting the arts, Taco and The White Family Foundation have been the flagship sponsors of the Providence Performing Arts Center’s (PPAC) Broadway Series for the past 17 years, and prior to that, they sponsored the Contemporary Classics Series (now called the Encore Series). This long-standing support has played a vital role in PPAC’s ability to present 89 top-notch Broadway engagements with over 800 performances to local audiences; combined subscriber attendance for these shows is 135,000 – strong evidence that Taco’s sponsorship has had a major impact in helping our theatre develop Broadway audiences in Rhode Island and nearby Massachusetts.

A hallmark of John’s tenure with Taco has been his extraordinary dedication to the ongoing educational and professional development of Taco employees, along with genuine care and consideration for their families. Taco recognizes their employees with annual service awards, provides college scholarships to employees’ children annually and also hosts a myriad of family activities throughout the year, including a Christmas Open House where children can come and visit their parents’ workplace. The company also provides opportunities for families to attend shows at the theatre whenever possible, and in recent years, they have hosted employee appreciation events at PPAC which include attending a Broadway show.

● The Johnson Financial Group (JFG) is a privately-owned financial services company offering banking and wealth solutions through its subsidiaries, Johnson Bank and Johnson Wealth. Since becoming the Title Sponsor of the Broadway series at the Marcus Performing Arts Center (MPAC), in the 2019/20 season, Johnson Financial Group has supported tremendous artistic achievements, driving substantial economic impact for the region generating more than $151 million in economic activity and an average of 140,000 patrons each season. Now, as MPAC approaches their 30^th anniversary Broadway season, JFG has renewed their commitment to bringing the best of Broadway to Milwaukee. Partnerships such as these inspire, unite, and transform communities.

● Zions Bank is a division of Zions Bancorporation, N.A., and has been a sponsor of Broadway in the mountain west for more than 20 years. Zions Bank, with headquarters steps from Salt Lake City's Eccles Theater, has been the Name in Title sponsor of the Broadway at the Eccles since the venue’s opening in 2016. Zions Bank is also the Name in Title sponsor of Broadway in Boise one of the fastest growing Broadway Series in one of the nation’s fastest growing metro-markets. Zions Bank has 121 full-service branches across the region that provide access to pre-sale tickets to prospective patrons of the Broadway series in Utah and Idaho. Zions Bank has 416 branches offices across 11 Western states — Arizona, California, Colorado, Idaho, Nevada, Oregon, New Mexico, Texas, Utah, Washington and Wyoming. The company is a national leader in U. S. Small Business Administration lending and is included in the S&P 500 and NASDAQ Financial 100 indices.