Elizabeth Williams

Elizabeth Peck Williams is an American academic and a Dora-, Olivier- and Tony-Award-winning theater producer.

Early life Williams was born in Arkadelphia, Arkansas.

Academic career Williams completed her dissertation with honors for a Ph.D. in the History of Art with a specialization in the art of the Ancient Near East. She has taught art history of the ancient world at Columbia University, University of California, Berkeley, and UCLA. dealing with creative producing and the financing of shows on the international market.

Theater career Williams has produced a total of over 90 plays, including On and Off-Broadway, in London's West End, and on national and international tours around the United States, United Kingdom, Europe and Australia. Her career began in 1984 when, at the prompting of her friend Karen Goodwin who sought her expertise in the arts, She earned her first Tony Award for the 1992 production of Crazy for You, which featured the Broadway debut of acclaimed director/choreographer Susan Stroman. Crazy for You also earned a Laurence Olivier Award, and the Drama Desk and Outer Critics Circle Awards for Best Musical. Also in 1993, through her production company Four Corners Productions, Williams continued to produce The Secret Garden; the following year, she produced a renewed run of Crazy for You, which ran until 1996. The five plays — A Moon for the Misbegotten, The Music Man, The Real Thing, and The Wild Party on Broadway, The Waverly Gallery Off-Broadway — earned both critical acclaim and a total of 24 Tony Awards among them; Williams executive produced the Chicago run of First Wives Club in 2015.

Williams is represented off-Broadway with the hit improv/sketch/musical comedy #DateMe: an okcupid experiment.

Television In 2005, Williams, along with Waxman and The Carsey-Werner Company, was co-executive producer of a reality TV program, The Scholar, for ABC.

Charitable involvement Williams has been involved with charities supporting women in politics and social justice since her college days. She also been a member of the board of directors of the 52nd Street Project and Women's Commission For Refugees and chaired the boards of directors of The Broadway Fund and the New York Theatre Workshop.

TodayTix In 2013, Williams was theatrical adviser to the then-startup company TodayTix, which provides an app for customers to purchase tickets to Broadway plays and other performances using mobile devices. "Any new ideas that come into the space that will provide shows a way to market their tickets is of interest to me, [...] We'll be able to reach audiences potentially who we haven't been able to reach before," she told the Associated Press, speaking about her work with TodayTix.

Personal life Williams is married to a fellow academic, who taught at Sarah Lawrence College, and whom she met while they were both graduate students in art history at Columbia University.

Awards Crazy for You (producer) 1992 Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Musical 1991–1992 Outer Critics Circle Award for Best Broadway Musical 1992–1993 Tony Award for Best Musical The Real Thing (producer) 1999–2000 Tony Award for Best Revival of a Play One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (producer) 2000–2001 Tony Award for Best Revival of a Play