Bock and Harnick will receive the William Inge Theatre Festival Distinguished Achievement in the American Theatre Award. Previous honorees have included Arthur Miller, August Wilson, Neil Simon and Stephen Sondheim. To Life! A Tribute to Jerry Bock and Sheldon Harnick, featuring numerous guest performers, will take place April 28.

The festival will include a concert of Bock and Harnick songs entitled "Beautiful, Beautiful World" on April 25 at 8 PM. The concert is developed by Robert L. Freedman, Paul Baker, Kaitlin Hopkins and Peter Ellenstein and will star Sarah Girard, Jean Kauffman, Alan Safier, Daniel Tatar and Laura Dekkers. Hopkins directs.

Stein will receive the inaugural Peter Stone Librettists Award, named for the late book writer of 1776 and other musicals.

The playwright JT Rogers will receive the Otis Guernsey New Voices in the American Theatre Award, given to an outstanding emerging playwright. His play Madagascar will get a reading on April 26 at 7:30 PM starring Robyn Cohen, Mary Beth Peil, Ken Ruta and Blake Robbins. David Ellenstein directs.

The theatre scholar Jackson Bryer will receive the Jerome Lawrence Award, given for contribution to the Inge Festival and American theatre. Bryer directed the conference segment of the festival for 20 years. He has served as the president of the Eugene O'Neill Society and is currently president of the Thornton Wilder Society and of the PEN/Faulkner Foundation. Other panels, workshops, readings and discussions with guest artists will take place during the days of the festival, which takes place at Independence Community College. Inge, the Pulitzer Prize and Oscar-winning writer, was a native of Independence, KS.

For more information visit www.ingefestival.org.