The League of Off-Broadway Theatres and Producers announced that playwright Wendy Wasserstein (The Heidi Chronicles) will receive the Lifetime Achievement Award, posthumously, and Shanley (Doubt) will be inducted onto the Playwrights' Sidewalk, in front of the Lortel Theatre in Greenwich Village.

The awards will be held at New World Stages, formerly Dodger Stages, in midtown Manhattan.

Wasserstein died Jan. 30 at age 55. She earned the Pulitzer Prize in Drama for The Heidi Chronicles, which also won her a Tony Award and the New York Drama Critics Circle Award. Her other plays include Isn't It Romantic, The Sisters Rosensweig, Uncommon Women and Others, An American Daughter, Old Money and the recent Third.

Shanley received the Lortel Award, Tony Award and Pulitzer Prize as the author of Doubt. His other plays include Defiance, Four Dogs and a Bone, Italian American Reconciliation, Beggars in the House of Plenty and the screenplay for "Moonstruck."

The nominations for the 2006 Lortel Awards will be announced April 4. A cocktail reception to congratulate all of the nominees will be held on April 17. A limited number of tickets, for the ceremony only, will go on sale to the public through the New World Stages (formerly Dodgers Stages) box office and Telecharge.com at (212) 239-6200, beginning April 4. *

Awarded since 1986, the Lucille Lortel Awards are produced by the League by special arrangement with the Lucille Lortel Foundation. Additional support is provided by Theatre Development Fund.

The cut-off date for 2005-06 eligibility is March 31. For more information, visit www.LortelAwards.com.