Susan Stroman

Born October 17 1954
Where: Wilmington, Delaware, USA

The award-winning choreographer and director is credited with revitalising Broadway theatre with her resurrection of The Producers.

And she went on attract international plaudits with a big screen version of the Mel Brooks musical, starring Nathan Lane and Uma Thurman.

As a choreographer, her credits have included Contact, The Frogs, The Music Man, Oklahmoma!, Crazy For You and Showboat.

As a girl, she was exposed to show tunes by her piano-playing salesman father and began studying dance, concentrating on jazz, tap, and ballet at the age of five.

She studied theatre at the University of Delaware (her first professional appearance was in Hit the Deck) and moved to New York after graduating in 1976.

Stroman's big break came when director Scott Ellis hired her to choreograph his off-Broadway revival of Flora the Red Menace in 1987.

It was seen by Hal Prince, who hired her to work on the dance sequences for his New York City Opera production of Don Giovanni.

She earned her first Broadway credit for her collaboration with director (and future husband) Mike Ockrent on Crazy for You (he died of leukaemia in 1999).

In 1993, she choreographed Liza Minnelli live at Carnegie Hall and went on to work on Oklahoma and You've Got Mail.

Suffering two major failures with Big and Steel Pier, she was thrown a lifeline by New York's Lincoln Center where she co-operated on the dance play Contact.

However, she enjoyed her finest moment when Mel Brooks' musical version for The Producers landed a record 12 Tony Awards.

In 2005, who made her directorial debut as a feature filmmaker with the big-screen adaptation of The Producers with Uma Thurman and Matthew Broderick.