Who will be the 2009 Producer of the Year? You tell me! Vote now.

Last year I started an annual tradition of choosing a Producer of the Year.  The first winner was the late Gerry Schoenfeld.

This year, I'm changing up how the winner is chosen.

For the past two weeks, I've been talking to General Managers, Publicists, Agents and other Prefer-To-Remain-Anonymous-Insiders, to come up with a list of nominees (not surprising, but many of these nominees are also on this year's "50 Most Powerful People on Broadway").

And now you're going to choose the winner.

The list of nominees, as chosen by my select group of experts, is below.  I asked each expert to write a blurb supporting their choice, which also follows.

Take a look, and when you're ready, click on the link below them to cast your vote.

 1.  Sonia Friedman

"The classy Ms. Friedman has been on a tear lately, and she gets my nod for being courageous enough to produce The Norman Conquests trilogy.  In a world where people want their news in less than 140 characters and their videos in YouTube clips, she actually got people to sit through three plays   . . . in one day!"

2.  Rocco Landesman

"Rocco is the only nominee on my list who gets the nom for not producing anymore.  As the new Chairman of the NEA, Rocco is now in a position to do more for the profit and non-profit theater on a national and international level than anyone else . . . ever."

 3.  Kevin McCollum

"In addition to Producing West Side, an oft member of the million-dollar-club, Kevin forged new ground by finding a way to make a limited run of a holiday musical work (White Christmas), and by going back to Off-Broadway with Avenue Q."

 4.  Jeffrey Richards

"Jeffrey had seven shows open in 2009.  And he's still got a couple of weeks left!  The sheer volume of his work qualifies him a nomination, but the real story of the year was his bailout of Hair, which recouped and snatched a Tony.  If only the government's bailout worked as well as Jeffrey's."

 5.  Jordan Roth

"When Rocco Landesman jumped on a metroliner to DC, he left an open chair for Jordan Roth, who is sitting in it quite nicely.  At his young age, he's got decades to go in this biz.  Expect great things.  But more importantly, expect new things."
 

A big thank you to my pundits for their wise choices.  

And now on to the voting!  

To vote for Producer of the Year, click on this link.

Make sure you cast your vote by Sunday, December 27th at 8 PM.  

The 2009 Producer of the Year will be announced on the blog on Monday, December 28th.  

Good luck to the nominees and let the voting begin!

VOTE NOW.

P.S.  You can only vote once . . . so for those producers on this list who just tried to put their assistant on voting over and over again, nice try.  ;-)