Leslie R. Urdang Tenney is an American film producer and theatre executive.
Education
Urdang attended Forest Hills High School in New York City, where she was Chairman of Senior SING! 1972 during her senior year,[1] and at which she was the graduation speaker in 2016.[2] She originally aspired to become a US senator, earning a B.A. in political science from the University of Pennsylvania.[3] In 1977, after her graduation, Urdang interned for U.S. Senator John A. Durkin (D-N.H.), assisting with constituent communications and issue research.
In 1978, Urdang decided not to apply to the John F. Kennedy School of Government and instead sought and won entry to the Yale School of Drama,[4] graduating in 1981. Her thesis there explored integrating the development of plays and films, which inspired her professional work.[5]
Career
Urdang began dancing professionally as a child in George Balanchine's staging of The Nutcracker, a chapter of her life documented in the 2006 film The Nutcracker Family: Behind the Magic.[6]
After graduating from Yale's drama school in 1981, she, Mark Linn-Baker and Max Mayer co-founded New York Stage and Film as an institution for professional playwrights, directors, actors, and designers, as well apprentices, to live and work together to move their plays to Broadway and theaters throughout the nation.[7][8] Projects have included the Tony Award winning plays Sideman and Tru, John Patrick Shanley's Pulitzer Prize for Drama and Tony Award winning Doubt, and most notably the epochal, multiple-award-winning musical Hamilton.[9] Urdang continues to be a Producing Director of the institution.[citation needed]
In the early 1990s, Urdang shared a New York City brownstone with then-boyfriend actor Rob Morrow, during the years in which he was seen on television as the protagonist of the series Northern Exposure.[11] In June 2012, Urdang married actor Jon Tenney.[citation needed]
In 2011 her film Beginners won the Gotham Award for Best Picture and the Oscar, Golden Globe and SAG award for Best Supporting Actor for Christopher Plummer.
Her 2010 film Rabbit Hole won an Oscar and Golden Globe Best Actress nomination for Nicole Kidman.