THE VILLAGE VOICE ANNOUNCES JUDGES FOR THE 56TH ANNUAL OBIE AWARDS CEREMONY WILL BE HELD MONDAY, MAY 16, 2011 Off-Broadway and Off-Off Broadway’s Highest Honor Salutes Outstanding Theatrical Accomplishments
The Village Voice, the nation’s first and largest alternative weekly newspaper, announced the judges for the 56th Annual Village Voice Obie Awards. The Voice’s chief theater critic, Michael Feingold, will again chair the Obie Awards committee. Joining him will be Voice critic Alexis Soloski and four guest judges: Critic Hilton Als of The New Yorker; playwright David Henry Hwang, a three-time Obie Award winner for his plays F.O.B., Golden Child, and Yellow Face; director Evan Yionoulis, an Obie award winner for her production of Richard Greenberg’s Three Days of Rain; and critic Andy Propst, of TheaterMania AmericanTheaterWeb.com (and also a frequent Voice contributor), who will again serve as secretary to the committee.
Founded in 1955 by Voice cultural editor Jerry Tallmer, The Village Voice Obie Awards annually honor the best of Off-Broadway and Off-Off Broadway. Unlike most theater awards, the Obies do not publicize nominations or employ rigid categories in which a “Best” is selected. In the conviction that creativity is not competitive, the judges select outstanding artists and productions and may even invent new categories to reward artistic merit. Past winners have included well-known stars such as Dustin Hoffman, Meryl Streep, William Hurt, Morgan Freeman, Mos Def, Amy Irving, Kevin Kline, Nathan Lane, Olympia Dukakis, Robert Duvall, Denzel Washington, Kevin Bacon, Alec Baldwin, Kathy Bates, James Earl Jones, Joan Cusack and Harvey Fierstein, to name a few.
The venue for the presentation of the 2010-2011 Village Voice Obie Awards on Monday, May 16, 2011 is Webster Hall. Tickets will be available for $25 to attend the ceremony soon at obies.villagevoice.com. Names of the ceremony's hosts and presenters and entertainment will be forthcoming.
About The Village Voice:
Founded by Dan Wolf, Ed Fancher, and Norman Mailer in October 1955, The Village Voice introduced free-form, high-spirited and passionate journalism into the public discourse. As the nation's first and largest alternative newsweekly, the Voice maintains the same tradition of no-holds-barred reporting and criticism it first embraced when it began publishing over fifty years ago. The recipient of three Pulitzer prizes, the National Press Foundation Award, and the George Polk Award, among others, the Voice has earned a reputation for its groundbreaking investigations of New York City politics, and as the premier expert on New York's cultural scene. Writing and reporting on local and national politics, with opinionated arts, culture, music, dance, film and theater reviews, daily web dispatches, comprehensive entertainment listings, and unrivaled classifieds, the Voice is the authoritative source on all that is New York.
The Village Voice has also created such celebrated events as the Obie Awards, Siren Music Festival, kNow Music Series, Choice Eats, as well as the most anticipated issues and guides of the year including the annual Pazz and Jop music poll, Best of NYC, and its Spring, Summer, and Fall Preview guides. The Voice is New York's most influential must-read alternative newspaper, in both print and online at www.villagevoice.com where the site averages 2 million unique users each month.
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