The Drama League’s Gabriel Stelian Shanks, Bonnie Comley, and Bevin Ross Embrace The Season

The Drama League’s EMBRACE THE SEASON Gala will take place on Monday, November 13th, at the Edison Ballroom. It’s the party of the season for the Broadway community of professionals and supporters to mingle with award-winning theater luminaries. Also in the room are The Drama League’s leaders: Gabriel Stelian Shanks, the Artistic Director; Bevin Ross, the Executive Director and President of the Drama League Board of Directors Bonnie Comley. Comley said, “It is my pleasure to share how proud we are to provide essential, critical support to the American Theater. This Gala will celebrate our community by honoring the thrilling season ahead for Broadway and Off-Broadway theater and provide awareness and funds to support the artists in our Directors Project. We hope you will join us!”

The Drama League has been at the forefront of the American theater community since 1916, providing career development and artistic resources for directors and a platform for dialogue with audiences. Drama League Directors have received 22 Tony Award Nominations and nine Tony Award Wins, 20 Obie Awards, and multiple Oscar, Emmy, Golden Globe, Peabody, Jefferson, Drama-Logue, Helen Hayes, NAACP, GLAAD, and Princess Grace Nominations and Awards, among other honors. Over 100 alumni are Artistic Leaders of theaters and production companies across the United States, Europe, Africa, the Middle East, and Asia. Collectively directing approximately 1,000 productions each season, Drama League Directors work in every aspect of the arts and entertainment industries. They have transformed, entertained, and inspired millions around the world.

This year, EMBRACE THE SEASON, designed to uplift the New York theatrical community, honors the legendary Broadway producer Jeffrey Richards. Currently represented on Broadway with the acclaimed revival of Purlie Victorious: A Non-Confederate Romp Through the Cotton Patch, Mr. Richards is celebrating five decades as a producer and publicist. His work has championed historically excluded artists, visionary new plays, and lauded revivals, including The Gershwins’ Porgy and Bess, Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar and Grill, Sunday in the Park with George, Fiddler on the Roof, All The Way, Glengarry Glen Ross, Chinglish, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf, and many more. He has employed many of America’s most noteworthy directors for these projects, including Drama League Directors Project alumni Alex Timbers, Diane Paulus, Sam Gold, Pam MacKinnon, Ari Edelson, and Michael Mayer.

EMBRACE THE SEASON, produced by Gabriel Stelian Shanks, will feature a dazzling array of exclusive performances, appearances, and “sneak peeks” of Broadway productions to come. To date, the evening includes Tony and Drama League Award Winner Annaleigh Ashford (Sweeney Todd); Lindsay Mendez (Merrily We Roll Along); Andrew Durand (Shucked); Betsy Aidem (Prayer for the French Republic); special glimpses into the upcoming Broadway musicals How To Dance In Ohio and Water For Elephants, the latter featuring the award-winning composer/band PigPen Theatre Co.; and a series of tributes to producer Jeffrey Richards, the 2023 Embrace The Season Gala Honoree, from Tony Award-winning director Diane Paulus, Tony Award Winner Danny Burstein (Moulin Rouge, Fiddler on the Roof), and Tony nominees Norm Lewis (The Gershwins Porgy and Bess) and Jessica Hecht (Summer 1976, Fiddler on the Roof), among others. The full cast and performers will be announced in November.

The Board of Directors’ Executive Committee is Bonnie Comley (President); Joseph Pizza and Arthur Pober (Vice Presidents); Townsend Teague (Treasurer); Irene Gandy (Secretary); Gabriel Stelian-Shanks (Artistic Director); and Bevin Ross (Executive Director). Completing the Drama League Board of Directors are Elena Araoz, Tony Benten, Trish Chambers, Estefanía Fadul, Sarah Hutton, Kirk Iwanowski, Una Jackman, Mary Jain, Paula Kaminsky Davis, Jonathan Lonner, Gwynn MacDonald, Stan Ponte, Nicole A. Watson, and Kumiko Yoshii.

EMBRACE THE SEASON is chaired by Mary Jain, with major underwriting from Bob Boyett/RB Theatricals, BroadwayHD, Susan Edelstein Productions, and additional support from 101 Productions, Caiola Productions, John Gore Organization, and The Nederlander Organization.

For tickets to EMBRACE THE SEASON, www.dramaleague.org, call 212-625-1025, or email [email protected]. The suggested dress for the Gala event is festive cocktail attire; black tie is optional.

Technology

Legacy to Cloud in 100 Sprints: A Tactical Guide for CTOs in Regulated Industries

By Sam Allcock06/01/2026

Cloud migration has become essential for regulated industries where security, compliance, and nonstop availability are crucial. From finance to healthcare and insurance, legacy systems once built for stability are now being stretched thin by the swift demands of digital transformation. Organizations face a daunting challenge: how to modernize without risking operational downtime or regulatory penalties? At the heart of this transformation is a practical story of steady progress, the journey of Balraj Adhana, a technology leader who pioneered an agile and risk-conscious approach known as “Legacy to Cloud in 100 Sprints.” With over 20 years of experience, Balraj has led the modernization of vital platforms across capital markets, insurance, and healthcare domains. His approach was not about big leaps but about breaking down the complex multi-year cloud migration into 100 manageable sprints. Sprinting added functional upgrades and provided complete business continuity, even to the most sensitive compliance systems. This method enabled teams to turn single-monolith legacy software into agile microservices, which operate in the cloud and reduce the six-hour critical batch processing windows to fifteen minutes. It has also reduced the costs of cloud infrastructure by up to 45%, signifying financial discipline and technical excellence. His leadership extended beyond technical delivery. He reshaped organizational collaboration by bridging gaps between technology, compliance, and audit teams, creating cross-functional cloud squads that improved onboarding speed by over 60% and sprint velocity by 65%. This cultural shift increased confidence across stakeholders and accelerated delivery without compromising regulatory requirements. The innovator also developed comprehensive internal playbooks, which became standardized guides for modernization projects across multiple industries. His leadership in establishing a Cloud Center of Excellence streamlined governance and tool use, reinforcing consistency in cloud adoption company-wide. One of the expert’s most notable achievements was achieving zero downtime during the phased migration of critical regulatory systems. His team implemented a dual-run strategy, running legacy and cloud systems in parallel for months while an automated engine reconciled all data events in real time. This approach eliminated risk during the transition and safeguarded thousands of compliance analysts working in global markets around the clock. His team also introduced event-driven architecture, turning overnight batch jobs into real-time event streams, boosting efficiency by 96%. These advancements accelerated compliance reporting from a three-day delay to same-day insight, increasing responsiveness to market changes. Cost savings were equally significant. By right-sizing workloads, adopting container orchestration, and eliminating redundant data centers, Balraj’s initiatives achieved $2 million in annual operational savings. Automated deployment pipelines and self-healing workflows reduced manual overhead by 40%, freeing teams to focus on innovation. Compliance adherence also improved dramatically, with full alignment to leading standards maintained throughout migration, a major trust builder with regulators and customers alike. The professional’s work provides useful insights for leaders facing modernization challenges today. He stresses that speed must align with safety, coining the phrase: “True transformation is a steady sprint, not a risky leap.” Instead of viewing compliance as a constraint, he sees it as an engineering discipline embedded from the start. He added,” Legacy systems are repositories of institutional knowledge that should be carefully refactored rather than discarded, preserving business logic while unlocking agility.” Looking ahead, he foresees hybrid and multi-cloud architectures dominating regulated sectors due to data residency and audit requirements. The next wave of modernization revolves around treating data pipelines as control planes, focusing on real-time observability and lineage tracking. Furthermore, AI-driven governance holds great promise, helping detect compliance risks preemptively and automating audit trails. Ultimately, cloud modernization is as much about people and culture as it is about technology, a balance Balraj has mastered with his pioneering 100-sprint approach. This story of transformation shows how complex regulatory IT environments can be modernized sustainably, enabling faster innovation, stronger compliance, and smarter cost management. Balraj Adhana’s model creates a roadmap for enterprises striving to keep pace with digital disruption while safeguarding trust and continuity. For regulated industries, the future belongs to those who blend engineering discipline with regulatory empathy to deliver cloud migration that’s faster, safer, and ready for the challenges ahead.

The Drama League’s Gabriel Stelian Shanks, Bonnie Comley, and Bevin Ross Embrace The Season

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