[Note: ASI’s 7th Annual Spark Awards has been rescheduled to Monday, November 16, 2020.]

O’Connell & Company Productions is a finalist for this year’s Spark Award for Arts Organization of the Year, an award that honors a nonprofit or for-profit arts organization for its achievements in the preceding year. O’Connell & Company is dedicated to entertaining through education, empowerment, and the creation of an inclusive community of professional and rising artists. Now celebrating its 25th season, the  nonprofit professional performing arts organization has enriched thousands of Western New York lives by producing a variety of musicals, plays, popular classics, regional premieres, and original works with a special focus on gender parity in the arts.

O’Connell & Company was founded in 1995 by award-winning actress Mary Kate O’Connell. Its previous performances have included an all-female production of 1776: The Musical, a regional premiere of The New Mel Brooks Musical: Young Frankenstein, Little Shop of Horrors, Baby, Nunsense, I Do! I Do!, Six Dance Lessons In Six Weeks, Musical of Musicals: The Musical, Buffalo ZINGS: Hot, Tedium & Wild!, and the O’Connell & Company original DIVA by DIVA: A Celebration of Women!, which has become Western New York’s longest-running production with it currently seeing its 20th season. The company recently relocated to the Ken-Ton Elmwood Commons at 3200 Elmwood Avenue in Tonawanda, New York.

The Theatre School at O’Connell & Company was scheduled to formally launch in the spring of 2020 and produce year-round workshops, camps, classes and more for youth, adults, and seniors of all levels and experience. Due to challenges resulting from COVID-19, the company has rescheduled all of its spring productions and workshops, but is looking forward to the future when our region’s arts community can once again thrive.

For more information on ASI’s seventh annual Spark Awards’ virtual presentation on Monday, November 16 at 7:00 pm, visit the Spark page of our website.