Presented by the Village Voice, the annual event will be produced and directed by Eileen Phelan. Michael Feingold, the chief theatre critic of the Village Voice, will chair the Obie Awards committee. He will be joined by Voice critic Alexis Soloski and six guest judges: Eric Grode, New York Sun; Andy Probst, AmericanTheaterWeb.com; Eisa Davis, actress-playwright and Passing Strange Obie Award winner; Ty Jones, actor-playwright, 2003 Obie Award winner for his performance in The Blacks; Moises Kaufman, playwright-director and 2004 Obie Award winner for his direction of I Am My Own Wife; and Chay Yew, playwright-director and 2007 Obie Award winner for his direction of Durango. Probst will also serve as secretary to the committee.

The Obie Awards were created in 1955 by Jerry Tallmer. Past recipients include Dustin Hoffman, Meryl Streep, William Hurt, Morgan Freeman, Mos Def, Amy Irving, Kevin Kline, Nathan Lane, Olympia Dukakis, Robert Duvall, Kevin Bacon, Alec Baldwin, Kathy Bates, James Earl Jones, Felicity Huffman and Harvey Fierstein, among others.

For more information visit www.villiagevoice.com/obies.