The evening will begin with cocktails at 6:30 PM. The presentation will take place at 7:30 PM, with dinner following at 8:30 PM.

Tributes to Albee will be offered by Tracy Letts and Amy Morton, who will soon be appearing in Albee's Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? at Arena and who, respectively, wrote and acted in Broadway's August: Osage County; Elaine Stritch (Albee's A Delicate Balance, A Little Night Music); and Kathleen Turner (Who's Afraid… on Broadway, The Graduate).

In addition to Who's Afraid… and A Delicate Balance, Albee has written Me, Myself & I; At Home at the Zoo; The Goat, or Who Is Sylvia?; The Play About the Baby; Three Tall Women; The Lady from Dubuque; Seascape; All Over; The American Dream; and The Zoo Story, among many others. He holds three Pulitzer Prizes, two Tony Awards, the Kennedy Center Honors, the National Medal of Arts and a Tony Award for Lifetime Achievement.

According to Arena, the American Artist Award "honors an artist who has made a significant contribution to American theater and who represents all that is passionate, exuberant, deep and dangerous in the American spirit." Past awardees include James Earl Jones, Robert “Bob” Alexander, August Wilson and Arena Stage co-founder Zelda Fichandler.

The Mead Center is located at 1101 Sixth Street, SW in Washington. Tickets start at $500 and are available by contacting Julie Lombard at (202) 600-4176 or [email protected].