Rob Marshall, Director-Producer-Choreographer-Episode #299

Storybeat with Steve Cuden

The great director, Rob Marshall, has made numerous films that have been honored with a total of 30 Academy Award nominations — winning 9 in all, including Best Picture for “Chicago,” which alone won a total of 6 of those Oscars. Also, for “Chicago,” Rob received the Directors Guild Award, and nominations for Best Director for the Oscar, Golden Globe and BAFTA awards. Additionally, he won Best Directorial Debut from the National Board of Review and the New York Film Critics Online, as well as the American Choreography Award.

Most recently, Rob directed and produced the live-action feature, “The Little Mermaid” for Disney, starring Halle Bailey, Melissa McCarthy and Javier Bardem.

Rob’s other directorial achievements include multiple nominations for award-winning features like: “Memoirs of a Geisha,” “Nine,” “Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides,” which went on to gross over 1 billion dollars worldwide, “Into the Woods,” and “Mary Poppins Returns.”

Rob executive produced, directed, and choreographed the NBC TV event “Tony Bennett: An American Classic,” for which he won his second Directors Guild Award. He’s also won 3 Emmys for Direction, Choreography, and Outstanding Variety, Music or Comedy Special. He directed and choreographed the Disney/ABC movie musical “Annie,” which received 12 Emmy nominations and won the prestigious Peabody Award. For choreographing Annie, Rob also received an Emmy and an American Choreography Award.

He’s received the Humanitas Prize for co-writing Mary Poppins Returns, and other awards from the Art Directors Guild, the Cinema Audio Society, the Costume Designers Guild, as well as the Annie Award, the Hamilton Award, and the Chita Rivera Award.

Rob’s extensive stage work includes the Broadway productions of “Cabaret,” “Little Me,” “Victor/Victoria,” “Damn Yankees,” “She Loves Me,” “Company,” and “Kiss of the Spiderwoman.” He’s been nominated six times for the Tony Award, and he’s a George Abbott Award winner.

For the record, Rob and I are both graduates of Taylor Allderdice High School here in Pittsburgh. Rob is also an alumni of Carnegie Mellon University’s top-rated School of Drama.