The Lifetime Achievement Award will be given to Signature Theatre founding artistic director James Houghton, who will step down from Signature Theatre after 25 years. Suzan-Lori Parks will be inducted onto the famed Playwrights’ Sidewalk in front of the Lucille Lortel Theatre. In 2002, Parks became the first African-American woman to win the Pulitzer Prize for her play, Topdog/Underdog, which was also nominated for the Tony Award for Best Play that year. The play began its life Off-Broadway at The Public Theater.
A calendar of events for the annual awards follows:
March 30: Nomination meeting – Nominations announced late afternoon.
March 31: 2015-16 Off-Broadway season ends.
March 31: Public tickets go on sale.
April 20: Nominees’ breakfast at Playwrights Horizons.
May 1: Award ceremony at NYU Skirball Center.
Writer/director Michael Heitzman will return to direct the Lortel Awards for the seventh consecutive year. The Lucille Lortel Awards are produced by special arrangement with the Lucille Lortel Foundation. Additional support is provided by Theatre Development Fund. Representatives of the Off-Broadway League, Actors’ Equity Association, Stage Directors & Choreographers Society, the Lucille Lortel Foundation, in addition to theatre journalists and academics and other Off-Broadway professionals, serve on the Voting Committee.
Members of the general public are welcome to view the ceremony. Public tickets are $75 and will be available starting March 31 via phone at (212) 998-4941, online at www.nyuskirball.org and in person at the Skirball Center’s Shagan Box Office (556 LaGuardia). For more information visit www.LortelAwards.org.
