Tony Rivenbark was the Executive and Artistic Director of Thalian Hall Center for the Performing Arts, Inc. from 1979 to his death in July 2022. He was an established actor having performed in more than 200 productions and made his debut on the Thalian Hall stage in 1966. A North Carolina native, he has a BA in History and Theatre from UNCW where he was listed in the Who’s Who of American College and Universities. In 1996 Tony received the Lower Cape Fear Historic Society Cup for his work with the research on Thalian Hall and the Thalian Hall Archives Collection. He was awarded Wilmington’s Lifetime Achievement for the Arts in 2004.
He was a past board member of the League of Historic American Theatres and was the second recipient of the LHAT Individual Award in 2005. He was recently honored by the Wilmington Star News as the recipient of the 2014 Enduring Contribution to Wilmington Theatre Award, and The Historic Wilmington Foundation's Thomas & Elizabeth Wright Award for Lifetime Achievement in Preservation.