Every year, Off-Broadway company Women's Project and Productions honors the achievement of women in various fields, including the theatre. June 3, they will fete 2002 Lifetime Achievement Tony Award winner Julie Harris and stage and TV performer Phylicia Rashad at a gala at Tavern on the Green. Kathleen Chalfant is the event emcee which will also honor Zagat Guide's Nina Zagat. Roberta Maxwell will present the Exceptional Achievement Award to Harris. A theatrical legend, she made her Broadway debut in 1945 but first came to viewers’ attention as Frankie Addams in The Member of the Wedding in 1950. Four Tony Awards followed, with acting kudos for Sally Bowles in I Am a Camera, The Lark, Forty Carats and The Last of Mrs. Lincoln. After film roles in "I Am a Camera," "Member of the Wedding" and "East of Eden," Harris went on to a seven-year stint on "Knot's Landing."
Terrence Mann (The Scarlet Pimpernel, Beauty and the Beast, Les Miserables) will present the award to Rashad. Although best known as the stern, but loving mother of the Huxtable clan on TV's "The Cosby Show," she has done quite a bit of theatre, starring as the Witch in Into the Woods on Broadway, performing in The Vagina Monoglues and in the recent Roundabout premiere of Blue.
Past recipients of the Exceptional Achievement Award include Lauren Bacall, Ruby Dee, Dame Judi Dench and Vanessa Redgrave. In 2001, the Broadway's Audra McDonald, producer Laura Pels, choreographer Twyla Tharp and classic stage star Irene Worth recieved the citation.
