Nashville's Martha Rivers Ingram Among Honorees at 2019 Theatre Communications Group Gala

Nashville businesswoman, philanthropist and arts advocate Martha Rivers Ingram is one of three individuals to be recognized at the annual gala of Theatre Communications Group in 2019. In addition to Ingram, who is co-founder of Nashville Repertory Theatre and who spearheaded the creation of the Tennessee Performing Arts Center, honorees included Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Tony Kushner and Broadway press agent Rick Miramontez, president of DKC/O&M.

Theatre Communications Group's annual gala will be held February 4, 2019, at the Edison Ballroom in New York City. Jordan Roth and Richie Jackson are co-chairs of the event.

Born in Charleston, South Carolina, Ingram was graduated from Ashley Hall in Charleston and received her Bachelor of Arts in history from Vassar College in 1957.

Ingram was a co-founder of the Schermerhorn Symphony Center, which opened in 2005. Formerly chair of the Board of Trust of Vanderbilt University, Ingram was named the 50th most generous philanthropist in America for her donations from 2000 to 2004, and in 2006 she was honored by the Community Foundation of Middle Tennessee as recipient of the Joe Kraft Humanitarian Award for her philanthropic efforts. She also was honored with the Eli and Edythe Broad Award for Philanthropy in the Arts.

Martha Rivers Ingram is the Chairman Emerita of the Board of Directors of Ingram Industries Inc., one of America's largest privately held companies. She is a member of the Ingram Industries board and served as its Chairman from 1995 to 2008. In addition, she is a past chairman of the Nashville Symphony Association board of directors and was vice chairman of the campaign to develop Schermerhorn Symphony Center, the orchestra's home in downtown Nashville, and she continues to serve on the Nashville Symphony board. She also serves on the boards of the Nashville Opera Association and the Nashville Repertory Theatre, an organization that she co-founded as the Tennessee Repertory Theatre in 1985. She is a member of the Advisory Council of the Nashville Ballet and a former member of the advisory board of the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C. She received a special award from the Kennedy Center in 2005 for lifetime accomplishments. Ingram was the guiding force in the creation of the Tennessee Performing Arts Center, where she continues to serve as a board member, and she chaired the 1996 Tennessee Bicentennial Commission.

Proceeds from the TCG Gala will benefit the organization's programs designed to "strengthen and promote the multi-generational theater field, while making a better world because of theater."

Past honorees of the TCG Gala include actor Brian Dennehy, director Kenny Leon, playwright Lynn Nottage, actor and playwright Danai Gurira, producers Stephen C. Byrd and Alia Jones-Harvey, set designer Ming Cho Lee, lighting designer Jules Fisher, the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, the Shubert Foundation, the Vilcek Foundation, producers Ruth and Stephen Hendel, Judith O. Rubin and the creators of War Paint - Scott Frankel, Michael Greif, Michael Korie and Doug Wright.