Presenters will include Elaine Stritch and Frances Sternhagen. The 2004-2005 Obie committee includes Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Paula Vogel, who is currently being celebrated by the Signature Theatre; three-time Obie Award winner Kathleen Chalfant, recently in Guantánamo: Honor Bound to Defend Freedom; two-time Tony nominee André De Shields, who was most recently on Broadway in Prymate; Obie-winning actor and playwright David Greenspan, now in Faust in Love; recent Anna in the Tropics Tony nominee Daphne Rubin-Vega; 20th century American theatre scholar David Savran; Village Voice theatre critics Michael Feingold and Alexis Soloski; and Village Voice theatre editor and chairman of the Obie Awards committee, Charles McNulty.

The Obies (as in "OB," short for Off-Broadway) have been presented since 1956 by the alternative Manhattan weekly The Village Voice, and honor strictly Off-Broadway work. There are no nominations, and the panel of judges may award as many prizes in one discipline as they please, even inventing new categories when it serves the purpose. The organization's motto is expressed as "Creativity is not a contest."