 And Julia and I, as our first act, we cut our speech. Both of you are in the correct order in the program. That's because we had to decide on the program several days ago. So don't worry about that. And I want you please to recognize previous winners of the Lily Award at Waking the Feminists and their protest in front of the Abbey Theatre. Really think that the time has come for everybody to look and examine and ask the question, why isn't that so many women artists, creative women in the theatre, feel marginalized and excluded? I hope that it will spark a lot of conversations and a lot of organizations looking to the way they practice and changing the way they practice. I hope it's the start of that. Amazing buzz, isn't there? Some incredible women conversation. We've all been having in private and smaller sectors trying to make smaller change. And finally it's reached a very big public forum and I think there's a lot of exciting things to come. Just supporting women in theatre and women in the industry in general. It's just amazing when everybody comes together you realize that they kind of strength that's here. A great result today will be equal access to storytelling in all our theatres. And that's what's going to happen because everybody wants it, it's the right time now. I have never been directed by a woman in 27 years. I have done one play by a woman, a French woman, that was adapted by a man. Other than that, zero. I have never worked with a female sound designer. I have worked with one lighting designer that was female. I have worked with one lighting technician. No sound technicians ever. I have worked on so many productions. Once I've worked with male stage manager, other than that the old female. They're statistics, they're just bold facts. How much talent have we lost to show of realism? How much talent have we lost to sexism? Why were we offered a debate? Why weren't we being offered an apology? Because if any institution, let alone a national theatre, something that's funded by the public, anything was horrific or racist, they'd be shot down. But sexism is still being considered a petty crime. We call it on the basis of our own expectations that we need to learn how to establish an apology from women artists. Our three campaign objectives are a sustained policy for inclusion with an action plan and measurable results, equal championing and advancement of women artists, and economic parity for all working in the theatre. Thank you. Inspired by the theme of activism tonight, I wrote this song inspired by Ney Stolen from Bob Dylan. Waking the Feminists. Months ago, I did not know what a hashtag was. Twitter was a weird farmland where people wrote fortune cookie-length brain vomit and Facebook was a place I could post videos of cats attacking toddlers. I never in my wildest dreams imagined that it could be used to mobilize an entire movement for equality. Waking the Feminists has awakened the force in Ireland that is spreading globally. Joining hands with the Lily Awards and the phenomenal work you are doing is exhilarating. To be part of the ruckus in our coronation world is personally one of the most rewarding and inspiring experiences of my life. It is an honor to represent Waking the Feminists to receive this award, but it must be said that the honor is ours too. We'd like to thank Julia and Marsha and everyone at the Lily Awards for honoring us and for generally being amazing human beings. I would like to thank Leanne Bell, our fearless founder, Sarah Durkin, and every person involved with Waking the Feminists for the hope and inspiration you give every day. Finally, I'd like to thank all of you here tonight for not being quiet the next time you see inequality in your theater, in your rehearsal room, or on your set. Thank you for calling it out. Thank you for being the rising tide by delifting the votes. Estelisa, who is in charge of our New York chapter. Waking the Feminists' aim is simple. Equality for women in Irish theater. We understand the causes are structural and systemic. The theater community is small, but its reach is wide. And we hope that what we will achieve will impact around the world. These two great theatrical islands of ours coexist in a global community, connect it together, and we will achieve gender equality faster by working together. Everyone at every level in the theater needs to engage with this movement. We are working with our own sector in Ireland to create policies, and from those policies we must see action, and from those actions we must see results, sooner rather than later. Our deadline is five years to achieve full gender equality. Looking out from the avi stage that day, I was shocked by the depth of feeling, by the anger expressed with such dignity, by the sheer number of women of all ages who are affected by gender equality. I saw Gary Hines, the first woman to win a Tony for directing. I saw women just starting out in their careers, and I saw many well-known women from stage and screen who I hadn't seen working in years. I was furious at the full realization of what we had all lost and what we all continue to lose, artists and audiences alike. Anger burns short, but determination burns long, the core group of waiting for feminists working week on week to drive a campaign are fueled by that determination. Women of the theater, whether in Balana, Baltimore or Berlin, will no longer fade into the wings. We will no longer be told, wait, not ready, not good enough, not yet. We will not wait. Our audiences will not wait. The time for action, the time for equality is now. Thank you. Please welcome Academy Award winner Tony Award nominee Lupita Nyong'o and the cast of the clips. The writing goes to Danai Gorila. It's running on Broadway now, and we are all lucky enough to be in this brilliant Tony-nominated work. Danai's activism is not limited to her plays. In Zimbabwe, where Danai grew up, she co-founded the Almasi Arts, which provides opportunities for local theater artists. I'm short. Danai has also worked tirelessly to make sure we never forget abducted girls all over the world. Though two of the Shibak school girls have just been found, over 200 girls kidnapped by the Boko Harau are still missing. With all this in mind, the Video Award, I'm proud to present this year's award in playwriting to my, our friend, our guiding light, Danai Gorila. At this moment, as I stay in the moment, I'm filled with outrage. On the video we just watched, she said, think of all the chauvinism that has caused the loss of our talent. And that made me really mad. I want to thank the Lily Awards for this affirmation of my voice and my efforts. I remember coming to the Lily Awards. I think it was its inaugural year. It was probably seven years ago. And I was a guest. I was a plus one of, it was awesome, though. I was a plus one of Sarah Trin, an amazing playwright, and now the amazing creator of The Affair. I sat amongst these rows. It might have been a playwright back then on my own. Yeah. I sat in that theater and watched these amazing women on stage, affirm our efforts and our voices. And I was so inspired by them. I remember Sarah Rohl spoke of how she was exhausted. She was breastfeeding intermittently throughout the whole thing. And I remember Lynn Nottage up there. And I remember feeling very, very affirmed as a young writer looking at them and feeling the warmth and the power and the activism in this room. I remember Julia reading several statistics that filled me with more and more outrage. And then I was just a fly on the wall of the event. I felt very thankful to be here. But then I remember walking outside. And I had never met her before. I thought she was amazing. She was very celebrated. But Sarah Rohl was introduced to me. And she told me, she had just read my play Eclipse. And she told me how she thought it was beautiful and powerful and important. And at the time, I didn't know that the world felt that way. And I remember being filled with so much hope, inspiration, and fuel to know I was on the right track and I was doing the right thing. And even though the world might not tell you so all the time. So what I've realized lately is that the spirit of what I feel in me as I've been walking through this road with these plays is that of making sure, as Sarah did that day, that those coming behind me are validated. That those girls coming behind me that might not know what AD will pick up the phone or pick up their script. Or those girls who might not know where they're going to get the next job from or how they're going to get around that male in front of them who keeps stopping them from getting to their destiny or so they feel or so they experience. So I really wanted to speak to those girls who are coming up behind me as a way of doing what I think the Lily Awards does so well. Which is really making sure we know we are important. We are vital. We are crucial. We are here. So I brought two girls today from Girl Be Heard which is an amazing organization that allows young girls to battle their struggles through writing and performance and speak to the world. I met them, this organization in London at a conference for sexual conflict, sexual violence and conflict where the attempts to stop that from happening, the things that happened at Eclipse were being made. And I saw them perform pieces that blew me away and I said these girls must receive as much support as I can give them. So I want to speak to young girls like you because you are the reason I do all I should do. You are the next generation. Your voices are so valuable and so important and we have to have them or where are we going to go. So I just have a few things I want to share with them that I learned along the way to make sure that I pass on what I have been so racially given. Firstly, young female artists have a vision. Identify your outrage. The lack that is unjustifiable in what narratives are yet to be told. Embrace that burden on your heart to get that story told. Embrace that burden is a blessing. Then get to work. No excuses. No one in the world can do what you can do. Tell the story the way you only can tell it. So don't deprive the world of your uniqueness. This is a big one. Go where you are loved. How many times do I have to learn that? And how often do I meet other young writers who speak of how this avenue and this artistic director and this agent didn't see something through, didn't respond the way they hoped and desired. Don't let disappointment stop you. Go where you are loved. Where your voice is embraced, your vision is respected. It may not be where you expected or where you hoped, but it may just be where you grow and are nurtured as a writer and an artist. It may just be where your breakthrough comes to pass. Don't let disappointment take hold. It is really asinine to creativity. It is poison to your creativity, rather. Stick to your vision and trust the right support will emerge if you keep doing your thing and putting yourself out there. And lastly, be a finisher. Get it done. All the way. Embrace the right collaborators and get it done. It's not for you. It's for all those other young female writers out there who will be blessed and inspired by your product. It's for all the women you will employ. It's for those whose light will shine as a result of the excellence you pursued when you put those words on the page. And it's for the legacy you assist in building that annihilates the concept that women's narratives are weak, rare, or unprofitable. So to the young women writers and creators in this room, I speak over you the same affirmation and validation Sarah gave me that day. And I so look forward to continuing to celebrate you. Thank you again to the Lily Awards. You are a deeply vital institution. Thank you for embracing and affirming my efforts. So many things, including the American Repertory Theatre in Cambridge, Tony Award winner Diane Paulus. Jesse Mueller has brought us the stories of two astonishing women in the last five years, Carol King and Adrienne Shelley. The Lilies are proud to recognize the clarity and boldness of her work bringing these pioneers, these women warriors onto the Broadway stage. Adrienne Shelley's 2000 film Waitress tells the story of Jenna, a working class waitress and expert pie maker stuck in a loveless marriage who finally finds the courage to free herself from an abusive relationship. The story of a woman overcoming domestic violence is a vital and pressing one that affects millions of people each year. According to the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence, one in three women and one in four women in the United States have been physically abused by an intimate partner. The cover of the Arts and Leisure section two weeks ago was an article entitled The Year Broadway Broke Through, in which New York Times theater critics Ben Bradley and Charles Isherwood and editor Scott Heller discussed how it was a strikingly diverse, unusually urgent season. Sexual and domestic violence must not be urgent issues. Since in their discussion there was not one mention of this theme that has been an integral part of our Broadway season this year. Exhibited in many productions including The Color Purple, Eclipse, Spring Awakening, Bright Star, Blackbird and Waitress. Furthermore, of the artists working on Broadway this season, their conversation cites ten male artists by name. Directors, writers, actors and choreographers in contrast to only one female artist who is mentioned by name. Okay, she's fierce, Audrey MacDonald. Female artists are significantly underrepresented on Broadway and women's stories are quick to be brushed under the rug by the media. It's time that we recognize the incredible artists many of whom are in this room tonight who are telling these stories in impactful ways. On the opening weekend of Waitress, we found a note pinned to the wall in our lobby installation at the Brooks Atkinson's theater. It read, thank you for saving my life. I left my abusive relationship because of this show. This was because of your performance, Jesse. You have brought this human story to life with stunning urgency and a beautiful authenticity true to the meta-ness we all experience in life. The Lily Awards are grateful for the continuing grace and power of Jesse Mueller's work on the American stage and we proudly present her with this year's Lily Award in Acting. Thank you. I'm a little flimpt. I'm really tired. I'm really sick of wearing dresses and heels. I'm just so... Oh, my God! I have no right to be up here with all the people that are out here and the work that's being done. I've never thought of myself as a feminist or doing anything feminine. I'm not very good with words. I guess why I like to pretend to be other people and depend on people like Adrian Shelley and Jesse Nelson to tell me what to say. But I am floored by the responsive people that have seen Waitress and I know Diane read. She told me about that and we got to work with a wonderful organization when we were rehearsing called Savvy. I don't know if anybody knows about it. It's through Monsign Eye Hospital. And, yeah, sexual assault and violence intervention and they have a team of volunteers. If you have a problem, you can call somebody that can meet you on the street corner. You can say, I have a bag. I just left my home. They work with people that come into emergency rooms carrying sexual violence because a lot of the doctors aren't equipped to help them with their heads and their hearts at that moment. I mean, people come in and they save people. I think one of the most important things we can do is the theater is there to help and to heal. And everybody's stories deserve to be heard. Women's stories can help and heal just as much as men's. So thank you to the Lillie Awards for making this important in people's line of vision. I've always felt so fortunate in the roles that I've been able to do. I just have been drawn to these very wonderfully powerful and messy women. And I've been entrusted to portray people like that and I just feel so blessed. I feel like there's so much inequality that I have never had to deal with. But I know that this is a very real thing and something we need to keep fighting for. So thank you to everybody here. And I'm also just glad to be in a room full of women supporting each other because that doesn't happen all the time. Especially in this business. So thank you so much. I'm really, really humbled by this. Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, Obie Award winner, Russell J. Jones. Hello, everyone. Thank you for this opportunity to talk about my friend, Kate Worisky. It says, directors do not just stand around telling actors where to stand. Directors help writers to see what they've written. They help actors to understand what they're meant to play. And they help the entire team grasp what we all as one soul want to bring to the audience. Kate Worisky is an official major presence in the world of directing. From Shakespeare to the work of Lynn Nottage, she has brought audiences into close contact with people they would otherwise not even know existed on this planet. It's as if she's determined to get American audiences aware of the world. And she has been doing this for a long time. I'm glad to see that she's getting a little respect because she's the one. She got a note here from Lynn Nottage. It says, I wish I could be there to affect you, Kate. Thank you for being such a dear friend, a trusted collaborator, and my sister in this artistic marathon. As a director, I appreciate that you bring great clarity and vision to all your projects. And I apologize for dragging you to unusual corners of this creative universe to find inspiration. But I thank you for being so game. She says, you dive into your work with all your heart, and you're always willing to wade into dark, unruly territory to find truth and beauty even in the most mundane of moments. Boston tough, uncompromising and generous. You make your collaborators feel safe and cared for as artists. And I feel eternally, eternally thankful that our paths crossed at just the right moment in our creative lives. It would have been tough finding my way through the thicket without your support. Congratulations, a well-deserved honor for a brilliant director. So for her artistry and her activism, the Lily Award Indirecting goes to Kate Worsky. Thank you. It's very exciting to be here. I've never been here before. I'm really happy. And I wanted to thank Marcia and Julia for founding this idea and for acknowledging a gap and celebrating everybody. So thank you very much. It's wonderfully in a room with people who have formed this community. And I wanted to have a little conversation with you about the nature of community and what women can do for each other. In 2008, I had one of the most difficult conversations I ever had with Lynn Nottage. And I took her out to dinner and I knew that I had to tell her something that I felt like would end our working relationship. We agreed to meet uptown and we spent the time between appetizers and desserts talking about anything that I could think of that was not the subject at hand. And I told her various things about theater and gossip. I was really so my heart was pumping. And she then starts to drive the conversation. She notes on Ruin and I stopped her and I said to Lynn and she said, no, no, no. And you have to understand we've been working on Ruin for five years. We had traveled to Uganda. We had done endless workshops. And I had to tell her that I couldn't do it. And I blurred out Lynn, I'm pregnant. The baby is doing it five weeks before we start rehearsal. I can't. And she stopped me, interrupted and says, without a breath, well, congratulations. Welcome to the world of working mothers. I got home to my husband and he asked how it went, knowing that it was an emotional time for me. And I done fondly said, well, I think I'm still doing it. When I look back over the last decade I recognize what a defining moment that was for me. In some way, Lynn made clear that who we love, who we make our family, and what we say on stage is all of a piece. That we are responsible to those we love and that responsibility translates to who and what we see on stage. Getting this award is now significant to me. And this election process where floodgates of hate speech are being unleashed, I'm honored to be part of a community that is in pursuit of strengthening the underrepresented voice, diminishing the hardening of our culture and deepening our sense of empathy. Thank you Russell for your kind words and friendship over the years. Thank you to the many women I have had the opportunity to collaborate with, including Julia Cho, Sarah Rule, Paula Vogel. And thank you Lynn for the generosity as we share motherhood and theater together. And a deep thanks to my family, Daniel, Rory and August, who are my northern life and defining what is significant to the stage. My kids are here tonight. First time. I'm excited for me. So last is, after Kate's speech, this is perfect timing, last summer the Lilly Awards began rolling out a child care initiative, a model camp where women who are both writers and mothers could bring their families and actually get work done and have happy children. We are determined that one day every colony, play lab and theater will have a child care policy so that never again will a woman writer have to choose between advancing her work and taking care of her children. Please welcome Emily Simines speaking on behalf of Space Camp at Ryder Farm. Hi, and thank you Julia. As Julia said, my name is Emily Simines and I am the founder and executive director of Space on Ryder Farm. For those of you who don't know it, we are an artist residency program housed on a working organic farm on our north of New York City. And last year we had the supreme pleasure of partnering with Lilly's on our first ever family residency that aimed to one, give working moms time and space to work on their art. Two, gave their kids time and space to be outdoors and play with other kids and be supervised by some education professionals. And three, to have time to be together as a family. And it went swimmingly. I'm going to read a quote from one of our residents of Stephanie's Adler Check who I think is here tonight. She says, it was such a gift that I didn't mean abandoning my family. Nor was it a logistical nightmare of lining up sitters, pickups and drop offs. We all escaped for a week. The impact on my work was immediate. But the impact on my son has been lasting. He talks about the farm all the time and keeps a small tree branch he collected there by his bed. Which I think is so sweet and is demonstrative I think of the experience. So we came back after last year and Julia and I and Marcia talked about what we should do this year. And so we opened up an application process and I just want to say that the level of applicants and the amount of applicants and the way that these applicants talked about their kids and talked about their relationship between their work and their children was sublime. It was really, really incredible. And I'm losing my thought that it was so beautiful. There we go, I know where it is now. One of the pervasive threads with this notion that I haven't applied for an opportunity like this in three years or I haven't applied for an opportunity like this in five years or I haven't applied for an opportunity like this in seven years because my mom or because I thought I wasn't invited or because somewhere along the line I made a choice to pick my kids over a residency program. And we're here to say that that's not what you need to do going forward. If I could take those applications and make a coffee table book about why this is so important, I would. So I'm going to announce the 2016 residents which are Diba Perot, Beth Nixon, Luisa Thomas-Pregerson, Georgia Stitt, Sarah Ruhl and their children. And I'm going to end by saying that if you're a working mother you should apply next year and most importantly, thank you so much for being such tremendous supporters of this initiative for always being ahead of the curve. If it weren't for you, I don't think I would be standing up here. So thank you so much. And you're going to find an envelope. Don't look now. The envelope is for money that you might want to put in that envelope to help send a kid to space camp just next year. We just remember that as let's go on and just for your head. So I'm here to present the Lea Ryan Prize is the Lea Board Member Kuzi Crab. So it's my great pleasure to be on both the Board of the Lilies and the Board of the Lea Ryan Prize which honors the memory of my dear friend. I met Lea at Juilliard in the playwriting program where Chris and Marcia were our teachers. She was funny and a reverent writer of plays, essays and postmodern greeting cards. To my mind Lea embodied what it means to be a modern woman of letters. She was infinitely curious and brave in her work and how she chose to live her life. When she died of leukemia in 2008 her friends and family created a foundation to honor her work and her extraordinarily generous spirit. Each year the award an emerging female playwright with $2,500 which I have here and a professional reading of their play and we give the award to her here at the Lilies. This year we're partnering with Primary Stages a New York station film so the prize winner will be able to workshop her play over the summer in preparation for reading in September. And also this year the foundation through the author's guild gave $5,000 to a writer facing a serious illness. Before she died Lea specifically requested we try and help writers in any way we could so she too was an advocate. Since the theme of this year's award is advocacy and activism I would encourage you all to think about how you can be actively generous to one another in both ways large and small. There's a lot of people doing large things here but we can all try to do it in our small ways. It can be very tough in this business to lead with an open heart but I urge you to take a cue from Lea who in her darkest hours was thinking about ways she could make writer's lives a little bit better. So in that spirit of generosity I am thrilled Jenny are you here? Hi. So I am thrilled to present the Learion Prize to Jenny Murphy for her wildly original and theatrical play Giant Tess. Giant Tess is a play about complicated bodies, choices and leaps of understanding we make when we love someone who is seemingly very different from us. In this play when Dee hears a mysterious noise in the abandoned glass factory behind her house she discovers a lost girl her own age with amnesia who happens to be 30 feet tall. Dee and the Giant Tess try to figure out who she is where she came from and the nature of their deepening connection to one another. Their story travels through time and space and unexpected ways that are moving funny and always surprising. Jenny just finished her first year at the school and I don't like to boast but this prize tends to be a sign of very good things to come. So I strongly urge all of you who make plays happen to hunt Jenny down in the bar after the show and read this play and come to her reading in the fall. She has a truly original and fresh voice and I want to see her plays living and breathing on stages and the Lillies and the Reading Committee congratulations. Wonderful and also very surreal. Because I'm a playwright I would much prefer to be sitting in the dark audience right now than being on stage but since I'm here I would just like to thank everyone and it's a huge honor to share a company tonight with so many exceptional women artists and leaders who push forward the art form, the industry and bring important stories and ideas into public discourse. I must thank the Lea Ryan Fund for emerging women writers for this prize and this platform. Like many women playwrights I have struggled with the not unreasonable fear that my plays might not find a place on stage in the American theater. At times it's been hard to quell these fears when writing to keep pushing forward an idea of a character or a world. As an early career writer I realize it is critical to find real allies and collaborators and I feel so lucky to be connected with the Lea Ryan Fund and for your support and your guidance moving forward. A big thanks as well to the board and staff of the Lillie Awards for creating and hosting this amazing event and bringing so many talented and forward thinking women into one room. I also would really love to acknowledge those who helped get me here. Philadelphia Young Playwrights or PYP is an arts education organization, a very dynamic one in my home city of Philadelphia. I wrote my first play for PYP when I was in high school and I later joined the staff as their general manager and also as an in-class teaching artist and dramaturg working with student playwrights in elementary, middle, and high school. PYP helped to shape my understanding of theater as an art form that is evocative and deeply human and one that has the potential to engage audiences and communities together in big ideas. I want to thank my family, both the family I was born into and my queer family for their love, support, and smart counsel. You've helped to shape my brain, my heart, my spirit, and encouraged me to engage both the political and the personal in my work. And thanks also to all the teachers in my life. My recent mentors, Jeanne O'Hare and Sarah Bull, as well as my college and high school writing teachers Anton Dudley and Ms. Schroeder and also to like really go back in time my second grade teacher, Penny, who told me not to worry about my terrible handwriting or my inventive spelling and just to write, just to write and write and write every day. And I'm also the daughter of two very amazing teachers my parents, Marianne D'Amico and Frank Murphy, who are here somewhere. Mom and Pop, I love you very much. You are such deep thinkers, passionate educators, funny, humble, and the coolest people I know. And I'm grateful for your faith in me, your honesty, and your love. Thank you, and thank you. We're enjoying the walk, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome. Sorry, Howard. I'm introducing the longest running Phantom of the Opera in history. It was also sung every other beautiful role written for a man including my own show, The Secret Garden 25 years ago. Here is our beloved Howard McGillan. Thank you, Martha. It's great to be here. Martha Plimpton has been politically active since she was a teenager. Marching for women's reproductive freedom in the 80s, in the 90s, and now. Even now. When the battle is far from over. She has lobbied Congress on behalf of Planned Parenthood and has spoken out for women's reproductive rights at campuses and rallies all across this country. And I believe she will keep doing this for as long as it takes. God damn it. When I was asked Amanda Green asked if I would present this award to Martha, and I was so delighted and honored to be asked. I've known Martha for about 15 years. Now we've been good friends. We've shared a lot of birthdays and holidays together, and I know her not only to be an artist of singular quality, but also ridiculously funny. And her passion for the world we live in and the causes that are dedicated to making it a better place make her a role model for us all. So it is my great pleasure to present the Lilly Award. In fact, I can think of no one more deserving for the award for speaking truth to power. Martha Plimpton. Thank you. Thank you, Howard. I'm very grateful to you for those kind words and for being here and for your friendship over the years and your support. And thank you all so much. Thank you to the Lilly's. And this is really extraordinary. And I'm a little nervous. I'm really astonished to be in all of these people's companies, some of whom I know many of whom I don't but all of whom I respect and admire and I'm completely in all of some of you I've worked with and some of you I hope to work with, many of you all of you actually if you'll have me because it's hard out there for a chick. Thank you to Julia and Marcia for creating this organization the entire board for all of your hard work and encouraging and seeking out women of vision who so often struggle to be heard this is of course a vitally important mission as we all know and I would like to add my own voice to the course of those who are so grateful to you all for the work that you do and the voices that you help to amplify in the theater and beyond. In this particular election year, regardless where each of us may stand politically although I have a feeling in this room we're pretty safe. I think it's safe to say that issues of representation and visibility are a central theme in the public discussion over who it is we feel should lead us who it is we feel silenced or marginalized by and how it is that we should go about making our voices heard. Representation of diverse voices in the arts, in culture and in political and social life is essential to influencing the course we take in this election. But in life in general mistakes are incredibly high for all of us, but particularly for women, people of color immigrants and refugees children, LGBTQ Americans and other members of our society whose most basic interests of survival and equality are under direct and constant threat pretty much daily around the world and particularly here at home as well. And the voices of women of diverse experiences are necessary to telling these stories and bringing them to the attention of the nation. They develop our understanding of human nature and life and they bring us closer to the empathic and intelligent society we all seek to live in. We can't afford not to listen to them to amplify them and to celebrate the courage it takes to do what so few others are willing to do which is tell the stories of those without traditionally accepted paths to power. It's funny because I didn't know the name of this award, the speaking truth to power things, so it's funny that it was just coincidentally, I just used the word power in my speech. Anyway, moving on. I am astonished and inspired by the creativity and courage of all the women here today and I do take a lesson from each of them that every heart and mind is capable of reaching into every other heart and mind, those of strangers and altering even if only for a moment the trajectory of a single life and that is no small accomplishment it is everything. All each of us has is one voice and this moment only this moment this moment alone which is in fact vast eternal and encompasses all of creation in the advocacy work that we do for abortion rights with our organization AS4 there's a little scarlet letter here we are doing our part to amplify the voices of people who've been silenced and shamed for making decisions according to their own conscience from the Rio Grande Valley to the Mississippi Delta to the prisons of El Salvador where women risk imprisonment for up to 40 years for the crime of miscarriage to the quickly disappearing clinics of Ohio and Florida and all of the country really these voices of the women most severely affected by abortion restrictions and prohibitions are rarely heard it is our duty to give them a platform a place to speak out and in some cases to speak out in their names when there is no other option so that everyone will know the depth and the truth of their humanity their dignity, their strength and their right to live their lives as they see fit I so appreciate everyone here who is dedicated to this mission of celebrating and encouraging women to speak up to write from their own experiences and to share those experiences with an audience that is truly hungry for more I don't care what anybody says they want it so we better give it to them hmm I am eternally grateful for this recognition as well as much as I know there is so so much more work to do and I stand in awe absolutely awe of the beauty of these women here and their minds and their willingness to keep going their perseverance in the face of systemic and cultural bigotry and bias all praise goes to you writers and you makers of art you storytellers who are making the world's soul a fuller one and altering the landscape for all those making their own paths alongside your example in the words of the great Lorraine Hansberry the thing that makes you exceptional if you are at all is inevitably that which must also make you lonely well the lilies are doing their part to make each of us feel a little less lonely more heard and a great deal more prepared to keep on going thank you so very much to the lilies and all of you congratulations to everyone thank you every year we honor one man our Miss Lily complete with a tiara sash and flowers but this year calls for something more substantial sometimes when something awful happens you see someone set a heroic example suffering through an unimaginable loss and coming out of it fighting hard Norbert Leo Butts famed Broadway funny man has done just that you join me with the angel band project in memory of his sister to address the scourge of sexual violence against women we thank you Norbert we need you take our love and our joy and $5,000 to keep helping survivors of abuse a man who fights for women is a real man speechless when I have to make a speech that's unfortunate Rachel would you come and join me ladies and gentlemen this is Rachel Ebling the actual founder I'm a board member I'm a co-founder but this is Rachel Ebling co-founder of the angel band project so my name is Norbert I am a feminist I wish as honored as I am to be receiving this award as badly as we need this $5,000 organization I wish to God if I have to speak the truth that I won't here tonight the reasons that the circumstances that brought me to this podium right now are unspeakable there's no speech behind them but as Rachel and I have there's music behind them there's art behind them which is what we're doing here and what this organization represents on the night of July 19th in 2000 in mind my sister Teresa two years younger than myself one of my dearest friends was along with her fiance just weeks from their wedding she was a proud lesbian they were attacked in Seattle in Keynes County Seattle for over two hours by an assailant at my point they were raped in every room of their home my sister began to demand dignity in her ordeal managed to fight him off just enough to save her partner's life she got out of her home she died naked on her front lawn in the arms of a 17 year old girl who was her neighbor this event the loss of my sister meant the loss of many things in my life and it's the nature of sexual violence these crimes they're far reaching implications and why we must continue to fight to eradicate crimes against women I have three daughters of my own the statistic one in four women being sexually abused on a college campus was a statistic that got a whole new meeting from me after my third daughter was born I thought wow if I had one more I'd really be screwed and that did not sit well with me my girls were 13 and 11 when their aunt, their beloved aunt was taken in their teenage years they have both suffered through eating disorders self harm drug issues my mother who was never allowed to touch her daughter when you're a victim of a crime like this your body becomes it belongs to the state it's it's proof my mom has never recovered the fact that she was never able to clean my sister she wasn't ever able to there she is Trisha you're still mad aren't you as I get on with it you've said this story so many times um within a year I had to seek help in a drug and alcohol program because I was drinking myself into a stupor each night um unable to deal with my own trauma um seven years sobriety and counting thank you very much um at her funeral I'm from a family of singers and performers I'm one of eleven children Trisha was the ninth out of the seventh we didn't have a lot of money we were sort of like the von traps kind of with a little coal miners daughter thrown in and just a touch of sort of Osborn family there too we always sang together we always harmonized at Trisha's funeral we sang no one could speak all we did was weep and we sang and Rachel Ebling has been best friends with Trisha since they were in kindergarten she and her other best friend um had a vision after we left the memorial service and then we had another memorial service in Seattle and we all got together and sang some more we pulled out guitars and just played her favorite songs um this amazing thing started happening people started talking about the event people started feeling people started expressing their grief people started coming together Rachel the idea of the angel band project which is an organization that exists in St. Louis Missouri um what if we took what if we made a cd based on the music that we had created at home memorial services um we started uh 501c3 and um to date we have music therapists that work with survivors um through songwriting workshops um we're servicing 100 women in St. Louis Missouri right now another branch is starting in Seattle Washington um we have uh great great hopes for this organization we do something called a virtual choir this is a brilliant brilliant idea how do we connect women these women who are silenced um with these with this trauma how to get them together singing with each other trying to make music um through technology they're able to Skype women in through and singing with a live choir wearing um headpieces and microphones monitors in their their ear and amazing things have started to happen so that's where this money your money um this organization's money is is going to help um not long after my sister died um two other interesting events happened in my life um my wife who's a brilliant actor we met doing Wicked actually we met doing a Julia Jordan reading Julia Jordan is responsible for Michelle and I um smoking lessons I also just have to say I was honored to do a play with Kate Woriski it was the greatest theater experience of my New York career she directed me and how I learned to drive amazing director congratulations Kate um um my wife um was a wonderful ingenue and then she became started playing moms that you know the way you ladies do it like you know 33 you know starting to play moms of teenage girls and then did three three roles on three procedures in which she played moms and then corpses my wife played three corpses in television before she went to semi-retirement I was given two scripts that pilot season after Teresa died in which I um one was to participate um in a sexual crime against a woman and another one investigate one um both of my daughters came home from their high school cafeteria saying we can't eat the cafeteria anymore we're getting too harassed by the boys in the cafeteria in their public high school so what the fuck is going on here man you know I was like and how was I blind to this my whole life and then it and then it dawned on me women have known this all along right I was just getting a glimpse into the world and I was horrified by what I saw so I'm going to keep on singing I sing the concerts for the angel band project we're having one in New York we'll keep you guys posted when it's coming along we try to raise money through the concerts um and that goes to help these these music therapy programs um um really really really honored to be here and be in a company in this incredible room thank you miss style but we've taken so much inspiration from you um this organization has really been built on a lot of your your ethics I just want to personally say thank you um and I want to give the mic to Rachel E. Blaine just for a second um she's the heart and soul of this organization thank you so much so um I just want to make a couple uh quick thank yous can't really believe that I'm here to represent the angel band oh we're from St. Louis on this stage tonight thank you to lily awards for giving us this wonderful gift because this money will go directly to impact survivors that we work with and secondly Norbert I mean we were all left speechless after Tracia died and you know it was really hard to kind of pick up those pieces and figure out how are we really going to move on with this reality and Norbert was one of the first ones that I kind of just cried on the shoulder and said can we do this thing can we sing and make this music have a bigger purpose than what it is for us and he represents men in this movement because we cannot end violence against women until the men start stepping up and helping us end that so Norbert has taken that stand and that's huge um and I just want to say that at all the voices here I mean all of these wonderful women are using their voices either on stage or directing others on stage or writing their thoughts down and it's so important to use our voices because I didn't know as a stay-at-home mom seven years ago that my world would be turned upside down when Tracia exited and I get to use my voice to stand up for women whose voices have been silenced and because of that Tracia has given me an amazing gift to share with others so for all of you thank you for using your voices and for the young people here your voices matter the most so use them thank you for that joy and please welcome Nina Beaver a previous winner of the Stacey Mindage go write a play award the Stacey Mindage prize is not just $25,000 it says pause for laughter I think because that's a lot of money Diana but it isn't just that it's an invitation into a group of writers whom Stacey has commanded to go write a play someone out there cares and will feed you literally Stacey gathers everyone who's one into her vision of as Gloria Stein in my light to quote has said women who we are all linked not ranked not only that we get to call Stacey whenever we're confused maybe not every time we're confused but from here on in Stacey will encourage you she will inspire you she will in every way be your champion this year's winner is Rihanna Lu Mirza got the money she has had readings everywhere established asian-american companies everywhere received awards from everyone now the lilies has an MFA in revolution from Columbia wait I'm sorry an MFA in playwriting from Columbia she was a co-founder of the Mahi Writers Lab and is a brand new mom her baby is one month old and one thing Stacey wanted to make clear is that writers are moms are writers so here you are Rihanna here is your check now go write a play I'm emotional from everything that's preceded this moment but when I got the news about this award I was sitting with my one month old child and one of us was curled up in field position and the other was crying that their career was over true we live in a two playwright household and my husband Mike Lu and I would often joke that we're doubly fucked double the rejections with half the bank account and as the woman apparently I get two thirds of those rejections and one third of the bank account it's easy to feel forgotten as a woman of color in the theater and a year which a lot of people have mentioned where politicians are spinning hateful narratives about Muslims and POCs which is personal to me it feels easy to feel not just forgotten but downright unwelcome so I try to address some of that in my plays but what I can't address is how to survive in the industry with a baby when we started this family I was worried people would assume I'd give up writing for the baby or that when I would accompany Mike to his productions theaters would mistake me for the nanny instead of acknowledge me as a playwright so before giving birth Mike and I emailed all the playwright parents the greats who came before us and asked is it totally crazy to start a family and how do I keep people from assuming shit when I say I'm a mother, wife or a writer with lady bits and our icons all took the time to write back and say it's really really hard but you won't fail you won't fade away what I didn't realize what Mike said was that you won't fade away because we won't let you so to my son who is in the audience I say take a look around you I know it's hard because you're only like a month old and you're probably asleep but I want you to realize that you are in a room filled with game changers people who understand the power of storytelling and are working to show the full breath of the human experience and who are making room for complex identities and I want you to be as thankful and grateful to all of them as I am especially to the lilies for creating a different narrative for firmly saying we hear you we see you, you are welcome here