When he first moved to New York, Canfield native Joey Monda would sit in the nosebleed seats for the Tony Awards and watch Broadway honor its best.

He has much better seats these days and a chance to make his third straight appearance on stage Sunday at Radio City Music Hall.

Monda, 32, is one of the producers of “A Strange Loop,” which is nominated for Best New Musical and 10 other Tony Awards, more than any other show this year. Lorenzo Thione, Jay Kuo and Monda lead Sing Out, Louise! Productions, which also co-produced 2019 Best New Musical winner “Hadestown” and 2021 Best New Play winner “The Inheritance.”

Growing up in the Mahoning Valley, Monda’s theatrical aspirations were on stage rather than behind the scenes.

“From the time I was super young, 6, 7 years old, I was doing shows at the Playhouse with Pat Fagan and the Youth Theatre program,” Monda said. “My first thing was ‘Stuart Little’ at the Playhouse, and that just kind of stuck.”

Monda appeared in several Youth Theatre and mainstage productions at the Playhouse as well as shows at the Oakland Center for the Arts and Victorian Players. He even did some work at Carousel Dinner Theatre in Akron.

“I can’t say enough about Pat Fagan and Hughy (Fagan),” Monda said. “They were constant advocates for me.”

He also has fond memories of working with John Holt when he was artistic director at the Playhouse and many of the actors who remain active in the local theater community.

After graduating from Canfield High School, Monda went to Wright State University to study musical theater performance, but the transition from the performance side to the business side wasn’t as abrupt as some might expect.

“My parents are both business minded individuals,” he said. “My mom was the dean of (Youngstown State University’s) business school for 25 years and just retired back in December. And my dad used to run Robinson Memorial Health Affiliates up in Ravenna … The intersection of art and commerce was always very much a part of my growing up.

“And while I was at school at Wright State University, the theater program was extraordinarily supportive of me exploring a whole bunch of different facets of theater, doing everything from stage managing to lighting design to music directing and playing in a pit (band). College really was the time where they supported my experimenting in a professional capacity.”

Before his junior year in college, he got a summer internship in New York with Seth Rudetsky, a host on SiriusXM’s On Broadway channel and co-author of the musical “Disaster.” While seeing a show Rudetsky was involved in, Monda sat next to producer Daryl Ross, who was bringing eventual Tony winner “Kinky Boots” to Broadway. That chance encounter led to an internship in her office.

“That was really my introduction on a professional level for what that was like and how the producer is really the center of the wheel for all things,” Monda said. “They were the glue that brought everything together.

“I never really looked back and never missed the performance element because I was able to find, the thing I found fulfilling about performance, I got that same level of fulfillment, just in a different way, on the producing end.”

After a year working with Ross, Monda returned to work with Rudetsky and earned his first producer credit with “Disaster,” a spoof of ’70s disaster movies, that ran for six months Off-Broadway in 2013-14 and ultimately opened on Broadway.

“That was really a trial-by-fire moment where I didn’t know any better and ended up doing the jobs of many, many people,” Monda said. “That was my initial experience with commercial theater in New York and everything in my life in some different way seems to circle back to ‘Disaster’.”

Sing Out, Louise! Productions was the lead producer on “Allegiance,” a musical starring George Takei about the the Japanese internment camps set up in the United States during World War II. While it’s also been involved in shows based on hit films (“Mrs. Doubtfire”) and shows built around the careers of famous performers (“The Cher Show”), Monda said Sing Out, Louise! is committed to developing original works like “Allegiance” that feature under-represented voices and stories.

Michael R. Jackson’s “A Strange Loop” — the story of a black, fat and queer man trying to create a black, fat and queer musical — definitely fits in that category. It’s not the easiest sell to summer tourists, who may want to see big stars or long-running favorites.

“We saw 15, 16 new Broadway shows open just in the month of April alone,” he said. “We’re all now competing for the same ticket buyer as ‘Hamilton’ and ‘The Music Man’ It’s a really crowded landscape. Figuring out what each individual show can put forward to convince audience members that’s what they want to see or that’s one of the two or three you can spend your money on in a weekend is increasingly challenging.”

Monda will be taking his mother, Betty Jo Licata, with him to Sunday’s Tony Awards.

“We used to watch them together when I was a kid,” he said. “I figured it would be a fun night for her to see up close.”

While those involved are “cautiously optimistic” that “A Strange Loop” won’t go home empty-handed on Sunday, Monda’s biggest hope is the show takes advantage of that national television exposure on to get added to theater lovers’ must-see lists.

“That’s definitely the focus. Any wins and representation on top of that is just gravy.”