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61st Annual Obie Awards to be Held Monday, May 23 at Webste Hall – Lea Delaria to Return as Host

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Rick Miramontez / Andy Snyder / Michael Jorgensen

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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE, PLEASE

 

THE AMERICAN THEATRE WING

AND THE VILLAGE VOICE

TO HOLD THE

6 1 S T   A N N U A L   O B I E   A W A R D S

ON MONDAY, MAY 23

AT WEBSTER HALL

 

LEA DELARIA TO RETURN AS HOST

 

 

New York, NY (January 14, 2016)—The American Theatre Wing (Heather Hitchens, President) and The Village Voice (Peter Barbey, Publisher) are pleased to announce that the 61st Annual Obie Awards will be held on Monday, May 23, 2016 at Webster Hall (125 East 11th Street). Obie and Screen Actors Guild® Award-winning actress Lea DeLaria will return as the host. Tickets to the 2016 Obie Awards will be announced at a later date.

 

“I am thrilled to be invited back to host the Obies. It’s the best party of the year, plus off-Broadway actresses are totally hot… and desperate,” said DeLaria.

 

Judges for the 61st Annual Obie Awards include Village Voice columnist and longtime Obie Judge’s chairman Michael Feingold, Obie-winning actress Quincy Tyler Bernstine, Obie-winning director Oliver Butler, Obie-winning composer Ricky Ian Gordon, Obie-winning costume designer Clint Ramos, Obie-winning actress Juliet Rylance, and Variety senior critic Marilyn Stasio, to form the 2015-16 Obie Awards judging panel. Productions that wish to invite consideration from the judges should visit www.ObieAwards.com.  Questions regarding invitations should be directed to ObieInvites@americantheatrewing.org

 

For more information, visit www.ObieAwards.com.

 

Lea DeLaria seems to have achieved overnight stardom with her SAG Award winning, stand-out role as ‘Carrie ‘Big Boo’ Black’ in the Netflix hit series “Orange is the New Black.” However, DeLaria’s multifaceted career as a comedian, actress and jazz musician, has in fact, spanned decades. Lea holds the distinction of being the first openly gay comic on television in America which led to countless Television and Film roles portraying Police Lieutenants, PE Teachers and the Lesbian who inappropriately hits on straight women. Selected TV credits: “Awkward,” “Clarence,” “Californication,” “The Oblongs,” “One Live to Live,” “Law and Order: SVU,” “Will and Grace,” “The Oblongs,” “Friends” & “Matlock.” Selected Film credits: First Wives Club, Dear Dumb Diary, Edge of Seventeen. She’s received Obie & Theater World Awards, and a Drama Desk nomination for her portrayal as ‘Hildy’ in the Public Theatre’s revival of On The Town, an Ovation nomination for The Boys From Syracuse, and has played both Eddie & Dr. Scott in the gender-bending Broadway musical The Rocky Horror Show. Lea was the featured vocalist at the 50th Anniversary of the Newport Jazz Festival, and has performed in some of the most prestigious houses in the world including Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, the Chicago Symphony, Hollywood Bowl, The Royal Albert Hall and the Sydney Opera House. Lea has five records on the Warner Jazz and Classics label and her book “Lea's Book of Rules for the World” is in its third printing at Bantam Doubleday and Dell. Her sixth record, House Of David delaria+bowie=jazz, was released in the Summer of 2015 to critical acclaim. Follow Lea on Twitter and Instagram @realleadelaria and FaceBook. www.delariadammit.com

 

The Village Voice (Peter Barbey, Publisher) created the Obie Awards, at the suggestion of then editor Jerry Tallmer, soon after the publication's own inception in 1955, to encourage the newly burgeoning Off Broadway theater movement and to acknowledge its achievements. The Obies are structured with informal categories, to recognize artists and productions worthy of distinction in each theatrical year. Over the decades, the Obie Awards have played a major role in the Voice’s long history of championing work of innovative and exceptional quality Off and Off-Off Broadway.  The Village Voice put the new downtown theater movement on the map with its in-depth coverage, becoming a forum for conflicting viewpoints which helped generate excitement over new works and new approaches to theater-making. The Obies have become a theatrical tradition, a meaningful way to acknowledge the best artistic achievements of downtown theater.  The list of actors, writers, directors, and designers who have received Obies at pivotal moments in their careers is a virtual who's who of contemporary theater. While the categories of the awards have continued to change almost annually, the creative spirit remains the same. The Obie Awards continue to salute a theatrical movement that's as important, and as vibrant, today as it was in 1955.

 

The American Theatre Wing (Heather Hitchens, President) is dedicated to advancing artistic excellence and nurturing theatre’s next generation: on the stage, behind the scenes, and in the audience. For nearly a century, the Wing has pursued this mission with programs that span the nation to invest in the growth and evolution of American Theatre. Traditionally, the Wing has encouraged members of the theatre community to share their off-stage time and talent directly with the theatre audience at large–whether it was singing for the troops in the Stage Door Canteen of the 1940's, or sharing their stories on a podcast today.  As the founders of The Tony Awards®, the American Theatre Wing has developed the foremost national platform for the recognition of theatrical achievement on Broadway. Yet the Wing's reach extends beyond Broadway and beyond New York. The Wing develops the next generation of theatre professionals through the SpringboardNYC and Theatre Intern Network programs, incubates innovative theatre across the country through the National Theatre Company Grants, fosters the song of American theatre through the Jonathan Larson Grants, honors the best in New York theatrical design with the Henry Hewes Design Award, and illuminates the creative process through the “Working in the Theatre” program and media archive. Beginning last season, the American Theatre Wing has entered into a long-term partnership with The Village Voice to co-present The Obie Awards, Off Broadway’s Highest Honor. The 61st Annual Obie Awards will be held in May 2016. Visitors to americantheatrewing.org can get inspired and gain insight into the artistic process through the Wing’s extensive media collection, and learn more about its programming for students, aspiring and working professionals, and audiences.

 

Follow the Wing on Facebook.com/TheAmericanTheatreWing and Twitter.com/TheWing.

 

Founded by Dan Wolf, Ed Fancher, and Norman Mailer in 1955, The Village Voice introduced free-form, high-spirited and passionate journalism into the public discourse. As the nation's first and largest alternative newsweekly, the Voice carries on the same tradition of no-holds-barred reporting and criticism it embraced when it began publishing nearly 60 years ago.

The recipient of three Pulitzer prizes, the National Press Foundation Award, and the George Polk Award, the Voice remains a vigilant investigative watchdog and a go-to source for coverage of New York's vast cultural landscape. The Voice's unique mix of in-depth news writing and reporting, incisive arts, culture, music, dance, film, and theater reviews, daily web dispatches, and comprehensive entertainment listings provides readers with an indispensable perspective on the inner workings of the world's most vibrant city. The Voice's daily-updated Web site www.villagevoice.com has twice been recognized as one of the nation's premier online sites for journalistic quality and local content. The site is a past winner of both the National Press Foundation's Online Journalism Award and the Editor and Publisher Eppy Award for Best Overall U.S. Weekly Newspaper Online. 

 

The Village Voice has independently produced and created such celebrated events as Choice Eats, 4Knots Music Festival, Brooklyn Pour, Holiday Spirits as well as the most anticipated issues and guides of the year including the annual Pazz and Jop music poll, Best of NYC, and Fall Arts Preview guides. 

 

 

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