Tony Converse

Tony Converse, born August 7, 1935, is a television and film producer whose career has spanned Broadway performance, television production, and theater administration. He earned a Bachelor of Arts in Drama from Yale University, graduating in 1957. At Yale, he served as president of the Yale Dramat and as drama critic for the Yale Daily News, during a period when New Haven regularly hosted productions bound for Broadway. Following graduation, he began his professional career in New York.

Converse joined CBS as a production assistant in 1957, working simultaneously as an actor, stage manager, and director in the legitimate theater. His early career was interrupted by two years of military service, during which he served as program director for the Armed Forces Radio Network in Europe. After returning to the United States, he worked as assistant to the artistic directors of both the American Shakespeare Festival in Stratford, Connecticut, and the Williamstown Theatre Festival in Massachusetts. His Broadway acting credits include an appearance in A Passage to India in 1962.

In 1963, Converse transitioned back to television, becoming producer of the daytime serial The Secret Storm, a position he held through 1969, producing more than 1,000 episodes. He then moved to The Dick Cavett Show, where he developed both the Emmy Award-nominated summer prime-time format and the late-night format. Among the notable programs he produced for that series were appearances by the Lunts and Noël Coward, coverage of the Woodstock Rock Festival, and solo programs featuring Groucho Marx and Jack Benny.

Converse joined CBS Television in 1971 as a program executive, where he created the CBS Daytime 90's unit, which developed more than 60 original teleplays and executive-produced 12 of them. That unit earned him an Emmy nomination. In 1974, he was appointed Vice President for Special Programs at CBS, overseeing the development and production of television films including Minstrel Man, Circle of Children, The Defection of Simas Kudirka, In This House of Brede, Goldenrod, The Deadliest Season, and The Amazing Howard Hughes. He also supervised such productions as Sills and Burnett at the Met, The Body Human, The Chuck Jones Animated Specials, and The Carter Inaugural Gala.

In 1977, Converse joined EMI Television Programs, Inc., the company recently formed by Roger Gimbel, as Vice President and Executive Producer. Working alongside Gimbel, he executive-produced a substantial body of television films, among them Special Olympics, which received the Humanitas Award, the Monte Carlo Film Festival Award, and the Christopher Award; Orphan Train, which received a Christopher Award; The Manions of America; A Piano for Mrs. Cimino, which received both a Film Advisory Board Award and a Monte Carlo Film Festival Award; and The Legend of Walks Far Woman, as well as numerous other productions including Forever, Deadman's Curve, Betrayal, The Cracker Factory, Survival of Dana, and A Question of Honor.

In 1994, Converse co-founded Symphony in the Glen with composer and conductor Arthur B. Rubinstein, a nonprofit organization that presents free chamber symphony concerts in Los Angeles parks. He also served for several years as a dramaturg at the National Playwrights Conference at the Eugene O'Neill Theater Center in Waterford, Connecticut, and held a board membership there for fifteen years.

Returning to theatrical production in 1998, Converse co-produced Over the River and Through the Woods, which ran 820 performances at the John Houseman Theater in New York. He subsequently co-produced the musical The Thing About Men at the Promenade Theater, which received the Outer Critics Circle Award as Best Musical of the 2003–2004 season. Beyond his producing work, Converse has been a member of the Caucus for Writers, Producers and Directors and served as a past governor of the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences. He has also been a board member of Symphony in the Glen since its founding.