 Welcome, welcome to the Theater Women Awards. These are the only awards dedicated to honoring the theatrical work of women and their contributions to the field across all disciplines. I'm Kelly Lynn Harrison. I'm one of the co-presidents of the League of Professional Theater Women. And I'm Catherine Porter, also co-president of the League. I know I speak for both of us when I say it is an honor to serve as League co-presidents. We are both so thrilled that all of you are joining us this evening to celebrate such tremendous theater women. If this is your first introduction to the League and our work, welcome. The League of Professional Theater Women may sound like a League of Superheroes, a veritable collection of Wonder Women, Captain's Marvel, is the case maybe. And yes, you know, fought for truth and justice and theater women by being their champion and leading the conversation for gender parity in the American theater through programming, advocacy initiatives, awards, and media. Just how do we do this, you might ask? Well, our superpowers include networking and advocacy. We believe that one cannot exist without the other. If we don't advocate for all theater women, there won't be a need for networking because there won't be sufficient opportunities for work. And if we don't build networks around theater women, our advocacy efforts won't be nearly as strong. This is an important time for women and women-identified theater artists. And we as a League are making a difference through initiatives like hashtag One More Conversation and Women Count. The fourth installment of the Women Count report published by the League and written by members, Martha Wade-Stecharty with Judith Binus, quantifies the status of women playwrights, directors, and backstage professionals in New York City theaters beyond the Broadway district. What we learned from the Women Count report inspired the League to start the League of Professional Theater Women's Seal of Approval, which is awarded to off-Broadway companies who have achieved gender parity with 50% or better hiring practices for the playwrights and or directors of their most current season. In the Me Too era, the League has taken the position that true change cannot happen without truly equal representation in theater leadership positions. And we're starting to see changes with at least around a half dozen women being named artistic directors at major regional theaters in the last six months, named over the course of the past year. The majority of the country's top 20 produced plays this year were written by women. The first show opened on Broadway with an all-female design team. According to the Women Count report, 41% of the playwrights and 47% of the directors hired last year off-Broadway were women, also last year at one of New York City's most prestigious off-Broadway houses, New York Theater Workshop, every show in their season was directed by a woman. Road to Parity is a long one. And as they say, if you want to go fast, travel alone. If you want to go far, travel with others. That's why we're launching important partnerships with like-minded allies like Equity and IOTC at the Women Stage the World Women Count March. Every time a theater woman succeeds in our industry, it paves the way for more women to do so. And that kind of paving is what makes the road to parity. That's why we champion the theatrical work of more than 400 theater women annually, not just by our advocacy and networking, but on our social media. You can see some of our hashtags in your program journals, along with all of our social media handles, as well as those of our honorees and presenters. While we ask you to silence your phones, please don't turn them off. Use them to follow us on Facebook and on Twitter at atlbtwomen and tweet about tonight's awards. Our hashtag for tonight is hashtag theater women awards. Please tell all your friends on social media about the wonderful women who are being honored here tonight on the road to parity. During last year's awards, the league launched its advocacy campaign hashtag One More Conversation, which, in addition to taking over on social media, included direct contact with approximately 400 theater leaders, decision makers, and educators across the country. And they were encouraged and continue to be encouraged to have one more conversation with a theater woman before making that final hire. As 50-50 in 2020 approaches, yes, time passes faster than you think it does. Hashtag One More Conversation is only one step in the league's road to parity, which is the theme of tonight's ceremony. The breadth and scope of this year's awardees' experience and talent are a call to action. The goal is parity. The time is now. We will now be joined on stage with Joan Kain and Yvette Heiliger, our co-VPs of programming. Good evening, everyone. I'm Joan Kain. And I am Yvette Heiliger. And welcome to the Theater Women Awards. Yes. Hey, Joan, did you hear Kelly Lynn say about the league of professional theater women that we are a league of superheroes? I sure did. Yes, in order to do our jobs as the co-vice presidents of programming, we have to call on all our superpowers quite a bit. Oh, my gosh, girl. That is so true. What is your superpower, Joan? That is collaboration. That's a good one. What is yours, Yvette? My superpower is sisterhood, Wakanda Forever. Yes. That's right. It takes a village of sisters collaborating together to pull off all the programming that we do during the season to support our members. You can say that again. There's the season launch, Julia's reading room, members night out. Theater connections, the holiday party, oral history, my favorite, the women's stage, the World Parade March. On her shoulders, the London trip, the annual meeting. But wait a minute, we're missing something of that. That would be the leadership luncheon at Sardis on Thursday, June 27th. At the luncheon, we will be awarding for the very first time the Rachel Crothers Leadership Award. Yes. Yes. Rachel Crothers was a theater woman who organized members of the theatrical community to support the war effort, both here and abroad, at a time when women couldn't even vote. The Rachel Crothers Leadership Award will be given to a theater woman who has distinguished herself in exemplary service and sacrifice for a common cause, a cause which will leave our society and world better than when we found it. If you want to learn more about the Rachel Crothers Award and all of our programming, please visit our website, www.theaterwomen.org. Or you can talk to one of our lovely volunteers. They're wearing a big badge that says, volunteer. We're not shy or subtle about anything, Joan. Talk about your superpowers. Even our volunteers have insignias. Let's not forget them and the other superheroes and she-heroes who donated their time and talents to make the Theater Woman Awards possible. We thank you for your joyful service. We also want to thank our hosts here at the Sheen Center for thought and culture, our presenters, and our wonderful awardees. Yeah. And we want to say hello and thank you to those of you who are watching us live stream via the magic of HowlRound TV, a commons-based peer-produced TV network. We also want to say hello and thank you to those of us who are watching via HowlRound on Facebook. Hey, say hey, Joan. Hey. OK. So please be sure to follow at HowlRound, H-O-W-L-R-O-U-N-D on Twitter and use hashtag HowlRound and hashtag L-P-T-W tonight as you're tweeting. And also, Yvette, we want to thank our raffle donors who donated wonderful prizes which are listed in your Sylvania programs. You can buy raffle tickets here tonight from one of our volunteers or online until April 1. And please do tune in for the Facebook live streaming of winners when they're picked at 4 PM on April 1. Enjoy the show. Thank you, Yvette and Joan. We have an incredible MC for this evening. Nancy Giles is an Emmy Award-winning contributor to CBS News Sunday morning and was most recently seen off-Broadway in the new group's production of Good for Auto by David Raib. She won the Theater World Award for the Satirical Musical Mayor, and as well as Gracie Awards, the Alliance of Women in Media, for talk radios Giles and Moriarty with Erin Moriarty, CBS News. Nancy was also in the ensemble cast of ABC TV's acclaimed drama China Beach and the sitcom Delta and was in films with director Mike Nichols and Clint Eastwood, among others. Giles toured with Chicago's famed second city, co-created four solo shows with director Ellie Covan at her legendary Dixon Place and has been a longtime volunteer with the 52nd Street Project here in New York City. As a regular guest on MSNBC, Giles finds the funny about politics and culture. She hosts the Mosquito, a monthly variety show at Dixon Place, and has a cool podcast The Giles Files on iTunes, Google Play, and Stitcher. I'm sure her own words are much better than mine. So please welcome our next stellar theater woman, Nancy Giles. Thank you. Thank you, my sweet. Me, too. Oh, thank you. Thank you all very much. Thank you, Kelly Lynn and Catherine, Joan, and Yvette. And congratulations to all the awardees. Hey, ladies. Woo! The audience is full of many past honorees, former presidents of the league, officers, and board members, past and present. And hopefully, there's some future ones out there, too. Most of all, there are league members out there, some of the most talented and accomplished women in the theater industry. I salute you all. And please salute each other. Let's have a round of applause for all you great professional theater women. Right. Let me tell you a little something about the league of professional theater women. The league promotes the work of hundreds of theater women every year through its social media presence, including the 13 founding members of the Kilroy's. We are honoring 20 theater women here tonight. Yeah, that's right. Woo! In order. Yeah, woo! The league serves over 500 members. And through its theater connections program, this past year, it helped connect theater women to the Manhattan Theater Club and New York Theater Workshop, as well as the public theater. The next theater connection will be with the Signature Theater on May 14th. All right. The plays of eight playwrights were read through the Julia's Reading Room series. That's named for the league's co-founder Julia Miles. And the legacies of three theater women this year, Lynn Nottage, Lois Smith, and Cheetah Rivera, were preserved through the Oral History Project. And on May 6th, we'll present the Oral History of Tova Felchu. The Oral History Project tapes interviews before a live audience. Admission is free. And if you'd like to attend, there's information in your journal about how to get a ticket. Sounds like a bargain, you know? Those tapes then become part of the Lincoln Center Video Archives at the New York Public Library of the Performing Arts. This year, 600 audience members will hear these women's stories live. But the number of theater artists and scholars who may be galvanized by seeing these tapes in the future is immeasurable. You can read more about the league's work in your lovely souvenir journal. The theater women being honored tonight are incredible in many different ways. We're going to start out with the Josephine Abadi Award. This award is given in memory of director and artistic director Josephine R. Abadi, who was a leader of the nonprofit theater movement in the United States. The award is given to an emerging director, producer, or creative director, of a work of cultural diversity who has worked in the professional theater for at least five years. Presenting this award is Emily Mann. She is a Tony-nominated playwright and director, and Tony-winning artistic director, and in her 29th season as MacArthur Theater's artistic director and resident playwright. I think that deserves applause right there. Right? Where at MacArthur, she has directed more than 50 productions. On Broadway, a streetcar named Desire, Anna in the Tropics, Execution of Justice. She was also the author. Having our say, adapted from the book by Sarah L. Delaney and A. Elizabeth Delaney with Amy Hill-Hearth, also author. Her other play, Still Life, Anula, an Autobiography, Greensboro, a Requiem, Ms. Sugar, Mrs. Packard, Hoodwinked, a primer on radical Islamism, and Gloria Alife about the legendary Gloria Steinem. I know, right? Currently in development, her stage adaptation of The Pianist. Adaptations include Baby Doll, Scenes from the Marriage, Uncle Vanya, The Cherry Orchard, The House of Bernada Alba, Antigone, Awards. I'm reading this because you guys need to know it. All right? Awards, Peabody, Hull Wariner, NAACP, Seven Obies, Guggenheim, Tony, Drama Desk, Outer Critics Circle Nominations, a Princeton University Honorary Doctorate of Arts, a Helen Merrill Distinguished Playwrights Award, and the Margo Jones Award given to, quote, a citizen of the theater who has demonstrated a lifetime commitment to the encouragement of living theater everywhere. Welcome, Emily Mann. Great! I don't know why she read that whole thing. OK. Good evening, everyone. It is a great honor to be here tonight. And it's even a greater pleasure because I'm introducing Mae Adralis, who is receiving the Josephine Abadie Award, as he told you, for a work which reflects cultural diversity. It's an honor for me, and it is deeply moving for me because Josephine Abadie was one of my closest friends and colleagues. And I'm just honored to say her name again and remind everyone here of one of the great, great women at the American Theater who, like Margo Jones, died too young. It's a great pleasure to introduce Mae Adralis because I have known and deeply admired Mae for over a decade. She's an artist of extraordinary sensitivity and craft. I first met her when she directed a production of my play, Mrs. Packard, with Fordham students. And she conjured an evening so powerful, you would have thought she was directing the acting company of the RSC. She got more out of those young people than I got out of a whole equity company. And I have never forgotten the genius of that particular rehearsal process ever. Her work with writers and new plays is some of the finest and varied in the country. And her work off-Broadway in the regions has expanded our audience's perception of race, sexual identity, and aesthetic possibilities. Many of you may know her for her Lortel and Obie Award-winning production of Viet Gan by Quingyne at MTC was also at South Coast Rep, Oregon Shakes and Seattle Rep. But her body of work is huge and varied in genre and style. From a smash hit production just recently of The Musical in the Heights, at Milwaukee Rep, to Chisa Hutchison's dramatic and tender play, Somebody's Daughter at second stage in New York, may has been able to put on stage some of the most loving and ferocious audience pleasing and audience challenging work. She provokes as much as she pleases of any director of her generation. A teacher, director, artistic leader, she's just been appointed Associate Artistic Director of Milwaukee Repertory Theater. She served with the LARC as Director of On-Stage Programming and at the Public Theater Spearheading the Shakespeare Lab. She's a recipient of the TCG Allen Schneider Directing Award, SDC Foundation's Denim Fellowship and the Paul Green Emerging Directing Award. I think may I draw us as soon to become one of our most important artistic leaders in the country and as well as one of our most accomplished artists. She's going to be both a leader and she's going to stay an artist. Please promise me you'll do that, may. The Josephine Aberdey Award, in my opinion, is at another step in her meteoric rise. It therefore gives me great joy to introduce to you the extraordinary, the exemplary, the beautiful May Adralis. Thank you so much. That was so moving to me. It's truly an honor to stand here among such powerful, inspiring women. And I just want to thank the League of Professional Women for recognizing my work as a director, but also a director who has always tried to be the change that I want to see on stage by directing culturally diverse work and committing to telling underrepresented stories. It's a particular honor because I've been fighting to tell these kinds of stories on the American stage for the last 12 years with a lot of tenacity. And fighting to create a new vision or definition of what America means to me, what America is, and what it means to be American. Yesterday was the closing of Lloyd Says, The Chinese Lady, which inspired by the real life of Afangmoy, the first Chinese female immigrant in America. And tomorrow, I begin tech a quick one sequel to Viet Ron. It's a new play titled Poor Yellow Rednecks, which tells the story of his parents, be it refugees, and their struggle to survive as, well, poor yellow rednecks in El Dorado, Arkansas. Both of these stories features strong, powerful immigrant women who fight against a system that's already stacked against them. And at a time when the word immigrant is synonymous with degrading, humiliating, violent epithets, these stories can be more urgent. So with humor and love and intelligence and a revolutionary type spirit, both of these stories humanize the refugee and immigrant experience. And in telling their stories, we weave another perspective into the fabric of American culture and history, writing what has largely been left ignored or vilified. And so that is sort of a summation of the body of my work. And I think when I look back at my fight for this, I realize that the fight for equity and fairness is something that's been deeply ingrained in me. And I can't think of the exact origin of this fight for their representation in equity. Maybe it originates from where I grew up, in a really tiny rural town in Virginia, that imposed a lot of limitations based on my race, class, and gender. Or maybe it's just a product of being a woman, a person who's often had to fight for a place at the table and learn the power of her own voice. It's also maybe originating from me being a first-generation immigrant. It's fighting for visibility and equity and staking a claim in a country that is largely left out of the culture and the history. But it's also maybe because I'm also really short and I need to sort of fight for attention and to be loud and energetic. But it's really all of those things. But when I think about my work as an artist, I really credit the extraordinary women who raised me. My mother, Jocelyn, and my sisters, Joanne, Gina, and Trisha, because they taught me how to fight in both big and small ways for justice and in our home, in our community, and the world at large. And they nurtured with generosity and taught me to love my fighting spirit and they helped cultivate my own voice so that I might use it for a greater purpose and within my art. So when I look at what formed me, I think about how I grew up and how these women held me and nurtured me. When I held ambitions, ambitions that were quite large, I wasn't told that I was aggressive or cute. Whenever I was forthright and direct, I was told I was confident and not difficult. When I was bossy or assertive, I was praised as a leader or someone that had aspirations to be a leader rather than some of the other unkind words that I've encountered when I exhibit those very same behaviors. When I was angry and emotional, I was challenged to turn that into productivity instead of merely to be nice and to be calm and to get used to a system. And so now that I'm gonna be a mother myself, I think, yes, I think of that language that was used to nurture me and I want to actually create a world in which that language is used with such generosity to this next generation, not just this little one growing inside me, but also for the women that will follow me. And I think about how to nurture her, his voice, and nurture them as a fighter, as someone that really stands for what they believe in and what they believe that America can be. This little one is expected significantly on July 4th. So I like to think that this little fighter is gonna be born on the same day that America was born and usher a new kind of America, the kind of America that I wanna see and a new kind of revolutionary fate. So thank you again for this honor. Thank you to Brad, Chad, and Seth who are here. And thanks for believing in the impact of the stories that we tell on stage. Yes, you're supposed to stand there for your photo op, okay, that's right. Congratulations, Mae. And before I go on to the next award, I just have to say I was reading Emily's credit so quickly that I glossed right over the fact that she's won an NAACP image award. I haven't won an NAACP image award. So clearly, Emily, I have to work with you. I gotta hook up with you later. Let's talk about it. Okay, anyway, going on. I had to get that out of my system. Thank you. Okay, it's all about women power. Okay, the League of Professional Theater Women Special Award is given to a remarkable theater woman for her service to the league and to her field. Next, we are honoring Mary Lynn Henry for her service to the industry as a casting director, acting coach, and teacher, and the author of one of the most widely used manuals on the business of writing, as well as her service to the league in promoting theater history and heritage as another step on the road to parity. Heritage is advocacy, and there are few more powerful activism tools than telling our own history as it actually was and not through the narrative lands of unconscious bias. Right onto that. Presenting the award to the glorious Mary Lynn is Paula Ewen. Paula is honored to present her brilliant friend, Mary Lynn Henry, with this much deserved LPTW special award. What, what's so funny? Oh, I said it right, right, you won. Oh, I did, okay, good, okay, I'm sorry. This past June, Paula appeared as Freddie and she calls me Firefly by Teresa Lotz at the Soho Playhouse, directed by Ludovica Villar-Houser, a founding member of the acclaimed Off-Broadway Theater Company 29th Street Rep. Paula played leading roles in over 27 premier productions since 1988, including six characters written for her by Bill Nav, notably visiting Oliver, an OOBR Award Best Actress, and Bible Burlesque opposite Edward Norton, all directed by Vera Barron. In 2003, Paula was directed by Ludovica in the rep's esteemed production of Rona Munro's Bold Girls, a graduate of the William Esper Studio and Rhode Island College. More recent credits include the national tour of On Golden Pond, Tea at Five as Catherine Hepburn, cool, at the Pasadena Playhouse, and The Brightness of Heaven for Heaven's Sake by Laura Peterson at the Cherry Lane Theater in 710, Maine in Buffalo. She is a proud member of Actors' Equity, SAG-AFTRA, and the League of Professional Theater Women. Here's Paula, or, you win. Oh, yes, hello, good evening, my name is Paula, you win, like I lose, you win. And tonight, I will be playing the role of the brief but spectacular presenter of the LPTW Special Award to Mary Lynn Henry. And I might add, casting by Mary Lynn Henry. Thank you. I've been in rehearsal for this part for about 10 years now, and yet I still feel a little shaky on my lines. No one could possibly encapsulate all that is Mary Lynn in two minutes. And those of you who know me know that a two-minute limit is particularly challenging, almost impossible. Since time is of the essence, however, I will introduce our esteemed awardee in a time-honored Irish tradition. Have you heard of the gal from the Golden State? Her passion for performing began at eight. She learned her craft at San Jose State, playing Angenous and comedic roles which determined her fate. Off to DC and a master's degree, Catholic U and Helen Hayes too. Toward Europe and Israel, the whole USA, till New York called her name and she's here with us till this day. Whether casting or teaching, coaching or researching, acting, advising, writing, revising, Mary Lynn is a force, an incredible resource. And ain't we lucky to have her. With spunk and tenacity, she just defies gravity. A Libra, of course, with the wings of a horse. Mary Lynn is a leader, a teacher, a friend, and we honor her this evening as best wishes we send. Wait. And don't just take it from me. Here's a testimonial from Jacqueline Zieman. I think she's chomping at the bit, actually. Here's a testimonial from Jacqueline Zieman of General Hospital fame, one of many thousands of performers whose careers were launched thanks to Mary Lynn Henry. Dear Mary Lynn, congratulations. You so deserve this honor and the recognition for all that you have contributed over the years. Your work and your presence in the industry has had such positive impact for so many people. And now, it is my pleasure and honor to introduce my very special friend, Mary Lynn Henry. Congratulations. A poet, who knew? It takes a village, what can I say? I wanna thank, first of all, the League of Professional Theater Women, the Co-Presidents, the Executive Committee, the Board of Directors, all the boards I've served on, the membership, the friends of the League, and whoever I have it mentioned, I'm sorry, for this very special award. The road to parity is paved with wonderful, inspirational memories of the amazing women who have supported me on my journey. Beginning with my mother, who for over six decades was my best friend, so often she reminded me that beauty is as beauty does. Sister Marie-Charles, my eighth grade teacher, told my mother, Mrs. Henry, Mary Lynn will either be famous or infamous. The vote is still out on her prediction. Dr. Ruth McKenzie, my drama lit professor at San Jose State, encouraged me to apply for a scholarship at the Catholic University of America. I didn't get it, but I was accepted to the grad program. At the university, I was introduced to Father Gilbert V. Hartke, who considered all of us his kids. It was because of him. I was cast to play a role in Good Morning Miss Dove, opposite Helen Hayes, who became a lasting influence and role model. Helen had a crush on Father. Oh yeah, she could do it. And was particularly inspired when we were offstage in a circle of prayer, about loving what we were doing and sharing that love with our audience. It was through him that 16 of us were sponsored by the State Department for a six-week tour beginning in Israel of all wilderness. Being invited to the White House by Lady Bird to perform short scenes in the East Room and attending a reception hosted by Golda My Ear at her home in Jerusalem. Maxine Marks, my boss in the casting department of an ad agency, the daughter of Chico Marks. There was never a dull moment. Oh Lord, people thought that she was their sister. M-A-R-X, M-A-R, well anyway, I had to kind of tell the ones who were going in there to meet with her. She's not their sister. She's the daughter of one of them. After nine years with her, my dear friend from Catholic U-Days who worked at ABC, arranged for me to be interviewed for a new position as in-house casting director for The Soaps, another woman who believed I could succeed. But there was also an extensive collaboration lasting 25 years with co-author Lynn Rogers. Together we produced five editions of a book with the objective of helping actors find jobs. Helen Hayes believed, quote, the most marvelous life training course I can think of is the theater. I can also identify with her belief that if you rest, you rust. Yeah. My bones may creak a little, she said, but mercifully rust hasn't set in yet. And finally, the inspirational quote from George Bernard Shaw, which she embraced and is meaningful for all of us here tonight, quote. I want to be thoroughly used up when I die. For the harder the work, the more I live. I am of the opinion that my life belongs to the whole community. And that as long as I live, it is my privilege to do for it whatever I can. Life is no brief candle to me. It is a sort of splendid torch, which I got hold of for the moment. And I want to make it burn as brightly as I can before handing it on to future generations. Thank you for this honor. And congratulations to all of these amazing awardees and presenters here for their contributions to the theater and to all the women who stage the world. Post and get the photo. You ladies, that's right. Vogue it, come on, that's right. Yeah, all right. Thank you. Congratulations, Mary Lynn. I love that if you rest, you rust. I'm writing that down. That's almost worth getting a tattoo, except I'm too nervous. Okay. The next award is the Lee Reynolds Award. This award remembers producer and league member Lee Reynolds by recognizing a woman or women active in any aspect of theater whose work through the medium of theater has helped to illuminate the possibilities for social, cultural or political change, which, as we all know, is always important, but seems even more necessary on a daily basis. Okay, I'm down, Nancy. Presenting the Lee Reynolds Award is Sarah Rule. Sarah Rule's plays include How to Transcend a Happy Marriage for Peter Pan on her 70th birthday, The Oldest Boy in the Next Room or The Vibrator Play, The Clean House, A Pulitzer Prize Finalist, Passion Play, Pan American Award, Fourth Freedom Forum Playwriting Award, Orlando, Late, A Cowboy Song, Dear Elizabeth, Dead Man Cell Phone, Eurydice, okay, what they said. It's, and stage kiss. Thank you, ladies. She's a two-time Pulitzer Prize finalist and a Tony Award nominee. She's received the Steinberg Distinguished Playwriting Award, the Susan Smith Blackburn Award, the Whiting Award, the Lillie Award, a Penn Award, and the MacArthur Genius Award. Her book of essays, 100 Essays I Don't Have Time to Write, I love that title, was published by Faber and Faber and was a Times Notable Book of the Year. She teaches at the Yale School of Drama and lives in Brooklyn with her family, Sarah Roll. So it's an honor to be here to present this award to my friend Karen, who is a brilliant writer, funny, bold, lyrical, and sysive. She is also one of the most produced playwrights in this country. You might not know that because her career has been made across the whole country rather than in the crucible of New York Theater, which says something about the sometimes paucity of New York Theater. Her plays pollinating and spreading like wildfire across the country at places like the Goodman, Denver Center, Lyons, Cincinnati Playhouse, make people laugh and make people think. Karen is also devoted to creating the next generation of playwrights and founded the incredibly impactful Young Playwrights Theater, teaching playwriting to young students in the Washington D.C. public schools. As a bicultural playwright, she's done much to push forward the conversation, helping to found the Latinx Theater Commons and writing YA roles for young Latino women to play. But this is all Karen's official biography, and I wanna speak personally about Karen. We first met at the Women's Playwriting Conference in Seattle about 15 years ago. She brought her first baby Niko with her, and I remember the grace with which she handled traveling, writing, and rehearsing with a small child. She was my role model. This was before I, like Karen, had three children, and she showed me that it could be done without sacrificing one's passion and devotion to the theater. Karen and I went swimming together on that trip. I remember the grace of her body moving through the water, the way she cut through the water with power and strength, and I think that is the way that she writes. With power, grace, strength, and forward momentum. On that trip, Karen and I, and our other new best playwright friend, Kathleen Toland, who's here tonight, and Julia Cho, were able to talk openly about things women and playwrights are seldom encouraged to discuss, things like money. Karen had an open, honest, get straight to equality, and we talked about how much we made with our commissions and how much our male counterparts were making, which was often a great deal more. We talked also about how to pump breast milk while traveling for productions. And we talked about our dreams. It has been my joyous privilege to watch Karen make her dreams into reality. The great director, Ava DuVernay, has said, if your dream is only about you, it's too small. Karen deeply understands this. Her dream includes lifting up other women, lifting up her community, and bringing catharsis and laughter to her whole wide audience. Thank you, Karen. Thank you, everybody. I'm Karen Sacarias and Sarah. That was beautiful and it's so exciting to be here with so many dynamic women who've inspired me along the way. I was born in Mexico to a Mexican father who believed that women could do anything they wanted to. And that doesn't kind of always fit the stereotype of a Mexican dad, but he only had daughters. And when people said, why don't you keep going to get a son? He was like, why should I mess with perfection? So, so for you, for you men out there, you have a big role in making us believe in ourselves. And I want to tell you that. But my father's an epidemiologist. His work was public health. His focus was the AIDS epidemic and he must have saved and worked towards saving hundreds and thousands of lives. So when I, so, and his motto was, don't worry about being happy, worry about being useful. So when I wanted to become a writer, I had a big struggle with that because what was useful about me sitting in a room and figuring out what was inside my heart? What was useful about finding a story and putting that on paper? What was useful about the indulgence of being an artist? That's how I felt about it. And so I didn't become an artist. I went to school and I did international relations and I was going to be a diplomat and work on treaties and bring the idea of Mexican and American treaties to play, et cetera. And as I was traveling early after my college years and I was in Nicaragua and I was in Guatemala and I was working with indigenous populations and getting people out for the vote, the one thing that kept coming up was people's stories. Over and over again, no matter what project that we were working on, I found that if I listened to somebody's story, that changed my point of view. And if they listened to something I told them about, that changed their point of view because really what is drama but the analysis of character, the looking of conflict, the resolution of choice. And when theater really works, it feels like community. And when it really works, it's a moment of communion. And so as we go out as artists in the world, I suddenly realized that I was worried so much about finding my voice and what I needed to do was listen. And when I started listening to the stories of other people, people who are not represented or misrepresented, the stories of children, of women, of people of color, I suddenly was able to start finding my voice and have a dialogue in that way. And so I just wanted to thank everybody today for letting a little Mexican girl who finally became a citizen a couple of months ago realize her dream of becoming a diplomat because really theater has been the best passport to the human condition and I've made the best friends and colleagues and it's an honor to be here today. So thank you. She's still there, get in there. Do it again, that's right. That's right, have your moment. Congratulations Karen. In April 1999, L-P-T-W received a bequest from the Lucille Lortel estate to establish an endowment to fund an award and grant which would be given annually to an aspiring woman in any discipline of theater who exemplifies great creative promise and deserves recognition and encouragement. This year's League of Professional Theater Women Lucille Lortel Award will be given to Natasha Sinha. Presenting this award is Paige Evans. Paige Evans became artistic director of Signature Theater in July 2016. Ms. Evans programs, commissions, develops and produces six plays each season by Signature Playwrights in Residence and has brought four new writers to Signature for Residences since her tenure began. Stephen Adley-Gurgus, Dominique Moroseau, Lynn Nottage and Dave Malloy. I know, right? In the past two seasons, Signature productions and artists have won MacArthur Genius Fellowships, Lortel, OB, Drama Desk and Actors Equity Awards and Signature received the 50-50 award for Gender Parity for both its 2017 and 2018 seasons. Prior to, that's right, give it up! That's great! Prior to joining Signature, Ms. Evans was artistic director of LCT3 from its inception in 2008 until 2016. Paige Evans. Thank you. I'm honored to be here tonight and to be introducing Natasha Sinha. Over the past 10 years, Natasha Sinha has worked tirelessly and passionately as a producer and dramaturg focused on new plays and musicals. In her roles at Barrington Stage, LCT3 and now at Signature Theater as our director of artistic programs, Natasha has championed an eclectic range of exciting new voices, offering a platform to artists from historically underrepresented communities whose voices have not been heard enough on American stages. Natasha also co-founded the Beehive Dramaturgy Studio and through both her freelance and staff dramaturgy and producing work, she's built strong relationships and trusting relationships with a whole range of talented artists who are pushing the boundaries of traditional style and content. Together, they are reinventing and reinvigorating the theatrical art form and the American theater is richer and more dynamic thanks to their efforts. I've admired Natasha since I first met her when she graduated from college and we had coffee and she spoke so passionately and so insightfully and with such taste about the work that she admired. And she told me that she had been sneaking into New York from Long Island all through her high school to see things that she loved. And she really had such insight and such clear views about what she responded to, the work that she responded to, it really struck me, which is very unusual in someone so young. So I'm delighted that the League of Professional Theater Women is recognizing her tonight with its Lucille Ortell Award for a woman who shows great creative promise and deserves recognition and encouragement. Natasha certainly does and she certainly does deserve it. Thanks to the League of Professional Theater Women and congratulations and well done, Natasha. Thank you, Paige. In thinking through today, I forgot about feelings and so many feelings when someone like Paige says so many nice things about you in front of everyone. Paige has been one of the main touchstones of my career at LCT3 and now at Signature. The way she thoughtfully and practically develops new plays is severely underrated and makes me think of all the struggles of being a woman and rising up as a leader during the generation before me. I just wanna say thank you to the League of Professional Theater Women for surprising me with this award. It was a startling gesture and it means even more to receive it alongside all of these incredible, incredible women. So little Natasha loved theater, storytelling that we watched together live that can simultaneously hit the head and the heart with intent when the intent craft and collaboration are all there is just amazing. I loved it, but I passively knew that almost everything that I was reading when I was younger was by white men and I still loved the work. I developed a killer ability to empathize with people who are unlike me. And there was actually, there was no moment of rage towards lack of representation or a battle cry for diversity. I didn't wish theaters would ask who are the female writers, who are the writers of color. I was just a kid and I was confused. This reality translated to me as, oh, people who look like me must not be good enough to get to the mainstream of theater. It was a simple and terrible line of thought. I assumed I'd be some weird doctor who bought theater tickets all the time, which would kind of be fine because I would see theater all the time. But now as a female producer and geometry of color in New York City institutional theater who now knows about systemic racism and internalized misogyny and performative wokeness and all of these things, I prioritize rigorously supporting these artists on their own terms. That's what a very narrow demographic has been allowed to do for so much of American theater history and I think it's our time. But I think it's dismissive and a little boring to just talk about subject matter and not the art or identity and not the talent behind it. I don't know how we'll create a multiplicity of strong, exciting theatrical voices from these communities if each of them is only defined by demographic data. I would rather talk about how Antoinette Nuandu so strikingly has form answering content and content answering form, layering theatricalities while exploring the complexity of black characters in America or about Lauren Yee who is one of our most prolific playwrights produced all over the country with plays full of humor and a relatable poignant for me since her parents are immigrants too like mine. There's Grace McLean portraying a little girl broken by medieval patriarchy by having three separate actresses playing that fractured little girl and speaking in a stylized speech and the gorgeous strangeness of that matches her innovative contemporary score for this upcoming musical that's gonna happen at LCT3. Then there's Shakina Nathak who has lived more extraordinary stories in her life than most and shockingly also knows how to articulate them into theater that have literally watched drastically change someone's mind over the course of one performance. There's Sylvia Corey who uses the most economical language to subvert what many assume about Syrian women allowing them to be full, flawed, funny and real. Andrea Tom can depict a simple moment of kids playing in a cardboard box but it's calibrated and positioned so specifically within a dreamy theatricality that your heart just like jumps into your throat when she uses theatrical conventions to shock you into realizing that what you're watching is a scene in which migrant kids are struggling to cross into safety. Or there's Melissa Lee who's able to write a tune as infectious as anything on Broadway or on the radio while also creating an invigorating journey from beginning to the end of a song. And with Kit Yan, those songs bolster stories centering ordinary queer Asian American folks. Madri Shaker has an ear for contemporary dialogue while exploring the joys and pains of the intersection between female friendship and ethics and female power within Indian harems from hundreds of years ago. And I mean, I could literally go on and on and on and that's without even getting to the writers who I love but just haven't had the opportunity to work with yet. Or with other artists, so aren't writers. And whatever I just said about those folks is really probably just the tip of the iceberg for them. They contain multitudes. The point is I believe in specificity and rigor and we need more spaces to casually center the conversation on women and other people from underrepresented communities while spending our time discussing and supporting individual talent's needs. We don't need to default to a male lens or a white lens or any kind of dominant lens unless it's relevant to that story. This is also why I do a lot of the freelance works or initiatives and prioritize what I'm doing with Beehive Geometry Studio. I don't have to wait to prove myself in those spaces. I can just do what I want to try out. I can just test out new processes and more nimble spaces which is really exciting and I'm always eager to connect brilliant theater people I meet to one another in order to join forces and together we can shift those defaults and allow for a richer pool of storytellers. The mainstream theater world I think should bend for those that could model a better future for us. And these artists can reflect back the untold truths we haven't yet heard and offer fresh perspectives on things that we maybe have been hearing about for thousands of years. Even if some of us sneaked in and learned to play by these rules, they were created without most of us in mind. So now we can use our privilege to create thoughtful, deep change. That'll lead to a world in which we develop pools of artists and other theater folks from every demographic so that multiplicity within these communities is part of the mainstream. And in that world, I think that the little Natashas could find a piece of themselves no matter what. A world where we can hold inclusivity and artistic rigor equally. And I have hundreds of Gmail drafts full of lists and ideas and goals and possible processes so I could do my part towards all of this and there are so many who inspire me daily including all of these women. So congrats to all of you who are receiving awards today and also to everyone doing the good work otherwise and thank you again to the league of professional theater women. Congratulations, congratulations Natacha. Tonight the league is honored to give Joanne Potlitzer its special award for her services to the industry as producer, translator, and archivist of Latin American theater and her contribution to the league in establishing an international committee. Theater is global and a collaborative communal art. In an era where there are loud calls for isolationism and the highest level of government rate different cultures on a sliding scale based on economics and the color of one's skin, it is more important than ever to connect with our global international theater women's sisters. As we said before, we don't walk this road alone. Presenting Joanne's award, we have Alexis Green. Alexis is an author, editor, teacher, and journalist and was a co-founder and first president of literary managers and dramaturgs of the Americas LMDA. Her books include the biography Lucille Lortel, The Queen of Off-Broadway and The Story of 42nd Street, written with the late theater historian Mary Henderson. In 2008, she took a sabbatical from theater to be public relations director for Community Environmental Center, a nonprofit dedicated to making New York City's residential buildings green. Post-CEC, she helped edit Yvette Halinger's dynamic play collection, What a Piece of Work is Man. And she has just finished a biography of the playwright director and longtime artistic director of the MacArthur Theater, Emily Mann. Alexis has been an L-P-T-W member since the 1990s. Alexis Green. It is my great honor and pleasure to talk about Joanne Potlitzer tonight. I don't think I have any guilty pleasure as Joanne Potlitzer once wrote in a blog post for the league. I just enjoy them. She grew up in Lafayette, Indiana, the first of three daughters of Jo Potlitzer, after whom she was named, and Madonna Mahoney. Come December, the Potlitzer household sported both Hanukkah lights and a Christmas tree. They taught me to respect difference, Joanne has said about her parents. But Joanne told me recently the theater really became her family. First came acting at Purdue University in Lafayette. Her first role is Manny in a radio broadcast of Sophoclese Antigone. From then on, she was hooked. She played Laurie, the feisty romantic heroine of Greengrove, the lilacs, Gertrude in the famous production of Hamlet. When people knew I was trying out, no one else did, she told me. I loved to act. She learned to speak Spanish at Purdue. And during a summer in Mexico City when she was 19, she developed her passion for other cultures. After college, she traveled to Latin America, especially Santiago Chile, to absorb that country's wealth of theater and performance. Not surprisingly, when General Augusto Pinochet came to power in Chile in 1973, helped, I might add, by a US-backed coup d'etat, Joanne would be persona non grata. The Chilean playwright Benjamin Gallimieri has said culture was seen by Pinochet as an act of terrorism. She came to New York in 1964, and in 1967 founded the Theater of Latin America, or TOLA. And as TOLA's artistic director, she began orchestrating arts exchanges between Latin America and the United States. TOLA produced more than 30 plays off-Broadway, concerts at Avery Fisher Hall and Carnegie Hall. TOLA also brought Augusto Boiles' Arena Theater of São Paulo to St. Clement's Church and then to the Public Theater. And in 1979, TOLA produced the first theater in the America's Festival at the Kennedy Center in Washington DC, Alamama, here in New York, and at the O'Neill Theater Center in Connecticut. Shortly after the League of Professional Theater Women was born in 1982, the League invited Joanne to become a member. And with her organizational skills and dedication to bringing together artists of varying backgrounds and voices, she soon became a co-vice president and a board member. She helped steer the oral history program, headed the membership committee, and in 2003 conceived and for three years chaired the International Committee, which has made the League a force for women in theater all over the world. Tonight, the League celebrates Joanne Potlitzer for her many accomplishments and also for her vision. She has always seen theater as an art that brings cultures together so that we can relish each other's creativity and learn from each other's methods and styles of performance. She has demonstrated that a country's theater is both unique and universal. Unique in terms of language and imagery. Universal because theater is an art that arouses emotions and ideas, which we can all share, no matter where we come from. Tonight's theme is parody and I believe we can all agree that women in theater need to be recognized and compensated to the same degree as men in theater, right? But parody can also mean recognizing and valuing the art of those who look or sound different from ourselves. And that has always been Joanne's vision. Today, when fear and hatred of the others seem to have infested the world around us, Joanne's democratic vision inspires us with its boldness and its curiosity and its humanity. And so it is my great honor to present this 2019 LPTW Special Award to Joanne Pulitzer. And this is a wow occasion for me. I'm truly honored and I thank you so much for this award. If I were to look at my career as a play, act one would be Tola. Act two, the league. And act three, my book, symbols of resistance about the influence of artists on the political processes and the play I'm developing based on the book. I hope there will be an act four and maybe even an act five. Alexis was right as why I began to bring Latin American theater here and produce Latin American plays. I had spent a year in Chile that really changed my life and I felt that through theater maybe some of the misconceptions between the United States and Latin America could be reconciled. I don't know if that happened, but I'm still trying. When I resigned from Tola in 1980, after 14 years of producing 21 plays and nine concerts culminating in the theater of the America's Festival in 79, I did a lot of different things. I acted in Jane Bowles in the summer house directed by Francoise Kouriski at La Mama. I began directing stage readings at first and in full productions at the Ensemble Studio Theater of Repertoria Español here in New York as well as in Tucson, Los Angeles and Santiago de Chile. I also freelanced as a consultant to the Ford Foundation, TCG, New Dramatists, the NEA in Tar and I began to write. I was fortunate to participate in one of Irene Fornes's legendary playwriting workshops where I coughed up the beginnings of my play Paper Wings about Frida Kahlo. Joining the league in 1984 anchored my energies and became my home among extraordinary women of theater. It allowed me to continue producing by organizing programs and panels and later thanks to the generous help of Dana Zeller Alexis to talk to the membership about my book and to organize a first reading of my play in development. I served on the board from 1986 to 2009 and when I was researching that I couldn't really, it was hard to believe, with two two-year lapses. 1988 to 1990 when I lived in Chile and directed Frank and Johnny and the Clare de Lune there and again in 94 to 96 when I began researching my book. I feel that my active years at the league were almost a career in itself. I headed the program committee for a time. I chaired the membership committee for four years with a mandate to uphold the membership criteria. I ran the oral history project for, I can't remember how many years, who were working with Betty Corwin was a real pleasure. Among many others we honored Judith Molina, Jane Alexander, and Zoe Caldwell. Then at the January 2003 board meeting while discussing opening up the league to national membership, someone suggested that we expand internationally. Joan Firestone piped up from far down the board table saying, Joanne you should do this. I took it on and never looked back. I believe the international committee was my most rewarding contribution to this amazing organization. Our first committee was tremendous. Joan Chanick, Martha Quanye, Barbara Colton, Anne Croswell, Margaret Croydon, Kenny Landau, Dorothy Olam, Mimi Turk. Shortly thereafter we were joined by Carol and Jones, Rena Leisha, Peefy Oskar, Dolores Sutton, Bernice Wilder, Carol Mack, and Marion Simon. Yeah. The committee set the initial guidelines for creating a network of qualified international affiliate members, define the committee's mission and plan some inspiring programs. We made sure we welcomed visiting international affiliate members to New York, offering them theater tickets when possible, assisting them in accomplishing what they wanted to do here, giving them a reception or a dinner or creating a program around them. Three highlights I remember during the three years I chaired the committee were Jung Soon Shim from Korea and Sanja Nikisevich from Croatia talking to our membership at TCG on July 28th, 2003. Producers Susanna Heath and Zo Simpson from London telling us their plans at Martha Quanye's apartment April 6th, 2004, and Farah Yagana from Iran talking about her work and the reception co-hosted by the league at TCG on June 9th, 2005. Martha Quanye hosted many memorable receptions in her apartment for visiting affiliate members. Angelina Fiordelesi, Delesi, sorry, hosted our dear Lidiana Ross. Ludovica Villarra Hauser and I hosted Mumbi Kaiwa from Kenya and Hopa Seda from Wanda. I'm happy the international committee is still strong and I hope it will continue for years to come. International dialogue is imperative. Over the years I have met and worked with remarkable women in this league, both here and abroad, and I've made lasting friendships. The organization has been an important part of my life. Thank you all for this honor. Congratulations, Joanne. The two of them backstage were like talking politics and I loved it. It was listening, it was passionate, I loved it. Okay, the Ruth Morley Design Award was initiated in 1998 in honor of costume designer Ruth Morley, one of the profession's leading designers for theater and film who also served on the league's board of directors. The recipient of this award, Mimi Lien, oh, I hope I said that right, I did, yes. Well, okay. Mimi Lien will receive a framed original print of one of Ruth Morley's designs. The award is given annually to an outstanding female theater designer in the field of costumes, scenery, lighting, sound, or special effects. To present tonight's Ruth Morley Award, we have Christine Jones. Christine is a Tony Award-winning set designer and the artistic director of Theater for One. Set design currently running, Harry Potter and the Curse of Child Parts I and II, the Cher Show, La Traviata, the Met, Broadway American Idiot, you want a Tony Award, hands on a hard body on a clear day, spring awakening, the green bird, everyday rapture. On the West End, close to you, back-rack re-imagine, let the right one in, Opera Rigoletto, other selected work, the Book of Longing at the Lincoln Center Festival, burn this at Signature Theater and true love. She's a 2015 OB Award winner for sustained excellence in set design, Christine Jones. Hello, everybody. So I had the great privilege, I can remember it clearly and I don't remember a lot of things but I do remember very clearly the first time I met Mimi was at my studio and she brought her portfolio to show me and she presented her undergraduate architecture thesis for which she had decided to design a cemetery. And what struck me immediately was how empathetically she thought about what a cemetery might be and the project was much more about what that installation was for the mourners and for the people who were experiencing it and right away I knew there was something really special about her. She went on to become my student at NYU and upon graduating spent a very brief time assisting me in my studio because soon enough she was doing her own projects and at that point we saw less of each other because set designers aren't ever in the same room. So at that point I became audience to her amazing accomplishments when I was looking at her bio and resume to prepare for today. The list was extremely long but particularly notable, Mimi became the first set designer to be a recipient of the MacArthur Genius Fellowship. So really a trailblazer and she last year won her first Tony Award. I say first because I know it will be the first of many for Natasha Pierre and the great comment of 18th century. And she has won an OBE Award as was mentioned for sustained excellence in design and that seems premature but I'm sure that she's already had a very robust career which is amazing. I read in an interview that Mimi is interested in the blurring of art and life and this is evident in her designs which sometimes obliterate the proscenium. It's also evident in the choice that she made to found Jack's performance space with her husband Alec Duffy. And the mission of Jack is to fuel experiments in art and activism collaborating with adventurous artists and our neighbors to bring about a just and vibrant society. That is what a genius does. In a book I believe Mimi is fond of called The Poetics of Space, Gaston Bachelard says, "'Daydream' transports the dreamer outside the immediate world to a world that bears the mark of infinity. Mimi's work transports us from the immediate world into a realm of fictional architecture in which actors and audience share an embrace and sometimes a shot of vodka." Mimi, congratulations. Thank you so much, Christine. I'm so incredibly pleased to be presented this award by you in particular because you have been a singular inspiration to me since my early days of attempting to be a set designer as you alluded to. I too remember that meeting incredibly vividly. It's like... In that summer I assisted you while I was in grad school when I didn't know anything about designing for theater. I learned so much just by working alongside you. Not only about design but also about life. The life of a designer, the inner life of an artist, the life of imparting to others as a teacher and later the life of a mother. As someone who just had twins a little over a year ago, I think I'm gonna be continuing to ask you for advice about what it's like to be a mother of two boys for years to come. And I'm very grateful for your presence in my life so thank you for being here today. It's really incredible to be sharing a stage with this cohort of amazing women. And as I was thinking about what I was gonna say here tonight, I just was thinking about people. I decided to take a look at the previous award recipients and was blown away by the list of women whose company I'm now joining. So many of the designers who have received the Ruth Morley Award in previous years were either my teachers, mentors, and beloved collaborators. Some of them, Susan Hilferty, Anna Luizos, Danielle Worley, Jane Cox, Linda Cho. Not to mention legendary folks like Jennifer Tipton, Wendell Harrington, and Willa Kim who really changed the face of design for women. I'm incredibly honored to be considered alongside them. All of these are fierce artists, visionaries, and great sources of inspiration for me. I've such great appreciation that the League exists and that there's an organization that recognizes these women and their achievements in order to better model a future where parody within the theater world exists. It's so important to have these models, you know. I had the benefit of having some great female teachers in high school. I don't think I even acknowledged it at the time but looking back on it, I think I really dug having a badass female chemistry teacher. And this is Temi, wherever you are, thank you. My mother was a professor of computer science starting in the 1970s and was the only female in her department for basically her entire career. I grew up watching her banter with her male colleagues and hand me off to my dad who taught nighttime classes when she went off to work. She was really good at math and she was the one who helped me with my geometry proofs and algebra homework. I don't know if it was the result of this but I've loved math and science as a kid and still do. She also would drive me around at my request around to different neighborhoods in town to look at the houses. And it was in that car that I really started to think about how houses and architectural space could be containers for identity and aspiration and symbols of class and social capital. I thought about it a lot actually when I was designing the play Fairview by Jackie Silby's jury recently. That house in that play actually, I think a lot of the houses in my suburban neighborhood of Connecticut informed that set. So I've been fortunate to have had great role models and door opening opportunities which have led me to be here, standing here today. I'm encouraged that in the past couple of years the conversation about gender equity has taken hold of the public consciousness in a galvanizing way. I'm very proud to have been a part of the first, crazily, all female design team for a Broadway play, a team put together by the formidable Lee Silverman. I wanna thank all of the women who have lifted me up by serving as inspirations, teachers, collaborators and friends. I also wanna thank my husband Alec Duffy as Christine mentioned who's not only a great warrior for gender and racial equity through his work at Jack but is also a very effective and affectionate wrangler of twins and has supported my work unwaveringly for all these years. So thank you so much to the league of professional theater women. I'm so honored to be receiving this award today. Oh, that's so great. Congratulations Mimi. What a cool painting. And you both look really cool by the way. Look at that artistic outfit stuff going on. I love it. This year we present the LPTW Lucille Lortel Visionary Award to the Kilroy's. Whoa, a collective of female playwrights and producers in Los Angeles who work to promote gender parity in theater. Presenting this award is Lisa Rothe. Lisa is a New York based freelance theater director, coach and educator. She was nominated for SDC's Joe A. Calloway Award for direction for Hold These Truths by Jean Sakata, originally produced by Epic Theater Ensemble. The show has toured the country and most recently won the Theater Bay Area Award for Outstanding Direction, Performer and Production. Lisa is currently the interim director of new works at Kansas City Repertory Theater, co-artistic director of the Actor's Center in New York City, a recent co-president of the League of Professional Theater Women, a usual suspect with New York Theater Workshop and member of the National Theater Conference, an artistic affiliate and former Audrey Fellow with the New Georges and a drama league and Fox Fellow alum. She was also the director of Global Exchange at the LARC for over five years, providing expanded opportunities for playwrights aimed at advancing new work to production, both nationally and globally. Lisa Rothe. Thank you, nobody says my name right. So thank you. And I'm normally no more analog than this, but I had to make a change and I didn't have a script. So here we are. On behalf of the League of Professional Theater Women, I am honored and beyond thrilled to have been invited to present the Lucille Lortel Visionary Award to the Kilroy's. Founded in 2013, the Kilroy's are named after the iconic graffiti tag Kilroy was here that was first left by World War II soldiers in unexpected places, playfully subversive way of making their presence known. For those of you who don't know, from their website, and this is I quote, I'm just gonna quote from your website. The Kilroy's are a gang of playwrights and producers in LA who are done talking about gender parity and are taking action. We mobilize others in our field and leverage our own power to support one another. And the tagline for the Kilroy's, which I love, is we make trouble and plays. That's pretty great. Nice, very catchy. I first heard about the Kilroy's six years ago when I was on staff at the Lark with the inspiring Mayor Dralis also. The staff was invited by this group of 13 activists to name a few women playwrights who had had none or one productions of their plays produced. And I remember it was just an extraordinary moment to sit around and actually go through all of these playwrights and begin to think about these amazing women that we loved and whose work was not getting produced. So this group banded together, this group of 13 banded together to create a powerful, powerful force working toward gender parity with an abundance mentality. I love that. And their work with deceptive simplicity and if you've done any work in not-for-profit arts administration, you know that deceptive and simple are really operative here. But their work consists of publishing a list of plays each year written by women, trans and non-binary playwrights. So following a survey of hundreds of professional artistic directors, literary managers, professors, producers, directors and dramaturgs, this list includes results of un- or underproduced plays by female trans and non-binary playwrights and serves as a tool for ending the systemic under-representation of these playwrights in the American theater. And in an article published last year, around this time by Kate Bergstrom, Kate noted that there is data that over 27 of these original 49 plays on the list were produced, that there was heightened interest by producers, agents and national theater institutions in playwrights whose plays were and are included as part of the list. And multiple schools have created classes and curriculum based on the list. And I thought this was pretty impressive that in a survey of previous list playwrights, 95% of respondents reported an increase of requests for their plays and 80% reported subsequent productions at notable theaters across the country. So thank you, thank you, thank you. Thank you. So you can read the short bios of all these amazing founded members in your program that I'm just gonna say their names out loud here. They are Zacchia Alexander, Becker Brunstetter, Sheila Callahan, Carla Chang, Anna Feinberg, Sarah Goebbins, Laura Jackman, Joy Meads, Kelly Miller, Meg Maroshnik, Daria Palatin, Tanya Serracho, and Marissa Wegerzin. Thank you, lots of applause. Right, can I do it right, can I say it right? I love me a good Polish name, but it's not Wegerzin. So here to receive the award tonight are three of the founding members, Zacchia Alexander, Joy Meads, and Kelly Miller, and please join me in celebrating these powerful, passionate, badass, and playfully subversive humans making a radical difference in the American theater. Thank you. Okay, well I'm gonna talk first. Thank you, Lisa, and thank you to the League of Professional Theater Women. It is such a joy and an honor to be here in this room full of all of these amazing humans. My heart is so full, thank you. So I'm a literary manager, which means that for the past dozen years I've read several hundred plays a year, and that stack of plays has taught me so much. The main thing it taught me is that we are living in an extraordinary age of American playwriting. We should feel odd and fortunate that we have access to an unprecedented diversity and abundance of excellent new play year after year after year. That stack of plays also taught me that the answer to the stubborn gap between the diversity of our stages and the diversities of the seas that we serve was right within reach. And it taught me finally that any theater that chooses to perpetuate the erasure of plays by women, trans, and non-binary artists isn't suffering from a lack of supply but from a failure of competence. Right? The consequences are this important. It's not just that we have a responsibility to a generation of incredible playwrights whose plays deserve to be experienced and remembered, although that is true. But it's also that the stories that we tell and the images that we present help shape our assumptions as a society about the potential and possibility within each one of us. We're in the beginning of an election season right now with no fewer than six female play... Candidates running, playwrights running. Should be six female playwrights. Candidates running. And already, you guys, already we have seen articles asking whether this candidate is likable enough or whether that candidate really owes her success to that successful man that she dated earlier in her career, right? There was a study that was done where they gave a bunch of people profiles of a state senator, right? And there was one that was just kind of a neutral profile in their one condition, their male name, one condition female name. And there was one where it was the same profile except that it said that the person was very ambitious and had like a will to power and wanted to do big things, right? And they found that the people, when they read that the male candidate was ambitious, that they wanted to do great things in office, that they liked that candidate more, they admired them more, they were more likely to vote for them, right? But when that same, those same words had a female name above them, people not only liked that candidate less, they not only were less likely to vote for them than the neutral candidate, but the researchers described that they felt, they expressed moral outrage, right? Over just the simple fact of that, I'm Bishop, right? I'm gonna say as a field, these facts are partially our fault, right? We have artificially limited the range of voices and stories on our stages. This repeated erasure constrains our ability to imagine the rest of humanity and it strengthens and perpetuates unconscious biases. When our season focus, focus the world on the same people who have always been center stage, we're complicit in larger cultural message that these people are more important, more interesting, and more deserving of attention. We contribute to the unconscious schemas that we've all inherited, stereotypes which limit the range of possibilities that others can see in us, and painfully can also inhibit our ability to imagine our own futures. It's time we told more stories about more of us. It's time our stages showed all of us as we actually are and it's time that the genius artists that are creating work year after year after year are finally appreciated as they deserve. So, and I wanna say it's been, I just wanna also say there's three of us here. Zakea's gonna speak as well, but there's 13 of us in the first class and I just wanna give a shout out to those women, fiercely brilliant women, women who are incandescent with talent. We laughed constantly, we fought like crazy, we made each other braver and better, and I would give a kidney to every last one of them. Okay, I love those killer eyes. And I also wanna say that we, the founding members are so inspired by the new class of killer eyes that have come in. They are 14 geniuses, they fill us with joy and excitement and we cannot wait to celebrate the incredible things that you're gonna do. All right, Zakea. It's such an incredible honor to be recognized for being a Kilroy and to share the stage with these remarkable women. So, thank you for having us here. When I was 16, I won my first major playwriting award, the Young Playwrights Award and at a very young age, I was hooked. Fast forward a few years and I'm enrolled as a playwright at the Yale School of Drama where four playwrights a year were accepted. I had earned my way into a small community. I assumed everything else would be easy because a play is neutral. The best play gets produced as long as you were invited into the room. Now, all that was left was to write the best plays I can and when that play is good enough, it'll be produced, right? Instead, what I experienced throughout my playwriting career was more confusing. Although I was trained at the best institutions and taught by inspiring teachers, no one ever pointed out the obvious. Almost none of the successful works that were being produced were written by women, not to mention a black woman or simply a woman who wasn't white. Even at Yale, I was the third black woman to be accepted as a playwright. So, although I was being trained to think that the play is the thing and that we were all equal slash had the same chance to be produced, no one taught me that this was not necessarily true if you were a woman or a black woman playwright. However, my naivete did not let me clearly see this issue. If I had, how could I have continued to persevere? Why couldn't I have a career like Sam Shepard or Brecht? All I had to do was write the best play. The one thing I had never considered is who deemed something to be the best? I was slowly becoming aware of the plays produced in New York City and holy shit, most were written by men and upon closer examination, most were white men. How did I never notice before? How was I so in love with theater that I missed the most basic effects? I was becoming frustrated and I realized by having drinks with writers and lit managers that we all complained of not being seen. We were all aware of that thing that happens when only a one woman is produced a season. That feeling as a woman and especially a woman of color, you are in direct competition with another woman of color. Only one of us can win. Only one story from a female perspective, that's all there is room for. The scarcity model was consuming us and worse, pitting us against each other. I wondered where were the writers I grew up with were? Where was Naomi Wallace or Naomi Azuka? How come Paula Vogel wasn't on every season like her male counterparts? What about Adrienne Kennedy? How come the women I most responded to have seemingly been left behind? If there is not room for them, is there even room for me? With all these thoughts percolating, a bunch of writers and producers found ourselves in Los Angeles. Ex-pats from our own theater communities. We had the same convo that we know most women in theater have everywhere. The difference is, this time we wondered how we could fix it. The kill rise grew with an intention to bring parody to American theater. We decided to answer the questions debated in pointless town halls and internet debates. We wanted to show artistic directors, theater makers, and ourselves the wealth of underproduced work by women, trans, and non-binary playwrights. We wanted to give a resource for what was seen as a lack, but we all knew was abundance. We wanted to bring action without explanation. We wanted to make noise, and we weren't even sure that anyone was ready to listen. And so we started the list, a resource of plays vetted by theater makers across the country, a list that had no rules except to showcase the plays by women, trans, and non-binary artists, plays that deserve to be seen, heard, and produced. We also started with data so we could see where we started and how far we go. Statistics are real. They are unemotional, cold, hard facts. And what we've learned is, despite our best intentions, the needle on parody is moving slowly, which is why we know the kill rise work isn't done. As a woman of color, the numbers are particularly illuminating. From the lilies, the count, 3.4% of women of color are produced. Let me present, repeat, 3.4%. A number that was missing from my education, but validated what I felt during my career, I was taught that my work was valued the same as my peers, however, statistics tell me otherwise. The numbers show me that it's bigger than the best play. This is about gender and white supremacy, where I least expected it, in the theater, a world where we often pretend is paradise, and maybe it is paradise if you're a white man working. However, it is not necessary for women, it is necessary for women to know these facts, so we can make the informed decision to stay in this industry or not. It's important to know what we are up against, and it took working as a kill-roy from my final layer of naivete to dissolve. On behalf of the kill-roy, I'd like to thank the League of Professional Theater Women for honoring our work. It's actually weird to stand here because this was never about us. It was about improving our industry, and we intentionally stepped back to let the work speak for itself. For five years with little money and lots of heart, the 13 of us did something we hoped would better the field. We jokingly say we all committed the equivalent of the time it takes to write or produce a play to do this work. But after five years, we wondered if we should disband. Was anything changing? Not to mention our careers and lives were getting busy and our time was stretched thin, and more than anything, we didn't want to become a root organization because in our opinion, institutional organizations have already failed us. But we couldn't ignore that making it to the kill-roy's list was a rare validation in a theater world that does not validate easy. Early on, we found Paula Vogel was just as excited to make our first list as emerging playwrights. Validation was necessary in big and small ways. We realized we started something that was bigger than us. So this year, we have a new class of kill-roy's ready to take our mission to the next level, and some of them are in the audience today to celebrate with us. I'd like them to please stand so we can give them a round of applause. What we know is the fight for parody isn't going to end today or even in the next few years. However, we will chip away, create new paradigms, and continue to highlight the work of women, trans, and non-binary artists. Until we reach parody in American theater, we are truly serving no one, not the audience and definitely not the art. There is so much work to be done, and we know everyone in the room is working for the same goals, which is why I know eventually we will succeed. Thank you again for this wonderful honor. That's right. Congratulations to all the kill-roy's and Zakiya, Joy, and Kelly that was inspiring. Our final award of the evening is the Lifetime Achievement Award. This year, we have the great honor to present it to, and I am honored to even say her name, Graciela Danielle. That's right. Just to name a few of her many accomplishments, she has directed productions on Broadway, at Lincoln Center, the Public Theater, and at regional theaters. She has earned 10 Tony Award nominations and six Drama Desk nominations. Her Broadway director choreographic credits include Cheetah Rivera, The Dancer's Life, Annie Get Your Gun, Marie Christine, Once on the Silent, Chronicle of a Death For Told and Dangerous Game. One of her notable collaborators couldn't be here tonight, but Lynn Ehrens wanted to send her love in her own inimitable words, which I will try now to read. Dearest Gracie, I toast you tonight from Seattle with vodka, which you've often assured me is the healthy choice. I'm remembering the day we first met. You came to my home looking like a rock star in a wild and shaggy white fur jacket to hear an early draft of a new musical by two unknown writers. You told us you were on your lunch hour and couldn't stay long. Instead, you stayed for three hours and used up an entire box of tissues. From that first collaboration on Once on this Island to Ragtime, to Dessa Rose, to The Glorious Ones, to Legacy, show by show and year by year, you've enriched my life, taught and inspired me more than you'll ever know, and radiated your special body beacon of joy throughout the entire theater community. Thank you for your passionate soul, your intuitive genius, your fearlessness, your dedication to the next generation, your Argentinian balls and your shaggy rock star jacket. And most of all, thank you for a lifetime of extraordinary uncompromising groundbreaking work. Love always, your sister at heart, Lynn Arons. Isn't that beautiful? Presenting this award, we have the equally inimitable Michael John LaChuza. Michael John is a five-time Tony Award-nominated composer, lyricist and librettist. You can applaud, you should, yeah. He's a man, we can applaud. Broadway, The Wild Party, Marie Christine, Chronicle of a Death for Told, Off-Broadway, First Daughter's Suite, Giant, Queen of the Mist, See What I Wanna See, First Lady's Suite, Bernarda Alba, Hello Again, Little Fish and Four Short Operas, break Agnes Eulogy for Mr. Ham, Lucky Nurse. In film, Hello Again, Awards, He's Won an Obie, a Gilman Gonzales Fala, Cleveland Foundation, Dramatist Guild, and 2008 and 2009 Daytime Emmy. Here to present Graciela's Award is Michael John LaChuza. It's nights like this that I'm very grateful that I was brought up in a family that included two grandmothers, seven aunties and 17 female cousins. So, they made me the man I am today and with a high tolerance of estrogen too. And these women here gathered here, you've made me a better writer, a better playwright, a better man all around. And I'm so grateful to be here tonight and to see you honored in the way that you should be honored. I also am really happy to be able to present the Lifetime Achievement Award to Graciela Danielle. I could go into details about Graciel's amazing career, just some names, Promises, Promises, Folly, Chicago, Pirates of Penzance, Edmund Rood, Tygo Apacianato, Chronicle of a Death foretold, Falsettles, Raytime, and that's just a partial list of shows she has played a cruel role in creating. But Graciel asked me not to do that because it embarrasses her when people talk about her many achievements and accomplishments. She asked me to make this intro short and she dared me to use the word vagina at least three times. Graciel and I have known each other, worked together for over a quarter of a century. That's over a quarter of a century of laughter, tears, a lot of vodka, not just a shot, a lot of vodka, and creative work that I can say I've been most proud of. She dares me to be the best I can be. Our collaboration is a unique one by anyone's standards, not because Graciel and I communicate so well, which is the cornerstone for any good collaboration, but because for the most part, neither one of us understands what the other is saying. I'll explain. Graciel has this Argentinian French Urdu accent, whatever, and when she gets excited, I can't really figure out what she's saying. And when I get excited because of my dyslexia, I start talking backwards like Yoda in the Star Wars movies and she has no idea what I'm saying. People who've been privy to our conversations have no idea what we're talking about. But for some reason, Graciel and I know what we mean. We have our own language, like the secret language of twins. I was thinking about this language we share on the way down here tonight, what to call it. It is simply the language of love. Mother child love, lover beloved, patriotic love, save the world, don't use plastic straw as love, love in all its manifestations. Any work environment that Graciel creates is a place of trust, support, hard work, and risk, fun and play, and most importantly, love. And you can sense that when you see a production that Graciel has choreographed or directed, or both, usually, this love pours from the stage. It comes from the actors in everywhere that they sing and every note and every movement they make, you can sense it in every nut and bolt in the set and every thread of every costume designer's design and every note the clarinet player is playing. If there were to be like a police lineup of shows, I'd be able to pick out a Graciela Danielle show in a New York second. I've worked with a lot of directors, a lot of directors, men and women who scream, shout and bully and threaten their shows into existence. And that's fine, whatever means to an end, but the language of love that Gracie speaks produces superior art. This is not to say that Graciela doesn't have a temper. She's a Latina woman for Christ's sakes and you do not cross that vagina. I have washed over your purses and handbags in the other room, fair, careful, while I was waiting to come out here. But even when forced to show her anger and temper, it still comes from a place of grace. I think this language of love has helped her to persevere many years in this business as a woman and to overcome so many obstacles. To love requires more strength and backbone than it does to hate. That's what I've learned from Graciela, what inspires me about Graciela. It's the greatest gift she's given me and it's the gift I hope to pass on to those I work with, to my students and to the younger generation of theater makers. So, with love and with gratitude, I'd like to present League of Professional Theater Women's Lifetime Achievement Award to the woman who calls me her son, the woman I call my mother, and my favorite vagina. Graciela Danielle! I adore her, Michelito. Hello, my sisters in the theater. I have to tell you something. I adore this man. He is, he's not a man, he's my son. He has inspired me for so many years and I work with great people, great people. But there's an affinity that I don't quite understand yet. Maybe it's because he is naughty, neurotic, very funny, and sometimes I want to really cut those buns and squeeze them until they bleed. But I adore you. Anyway, getting a little more serious. When I learned that I was going to get this Lifetime Achievement Award, I was elated and grateful and proud. And two seconds later I thought, does this mean that I'm so old I should retire? No way. But before I do, let me tell you a little bit about my life. I was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, 79 years ago. And I'm still here. I was brought up by three extraordinary women, my grandmother, my mother, and my aunt. There were no men at home in my childhood because my grandfather died when I was six. And my parents divorced the following year. We were working class. So after seven years of studying ballet at the Theatro Colón in Buenos Aires, I had to work. So I started dancing in ballet companies in Argentina, Brazil, Cuba, Colombia, and finally my beloved France. When I saw in Paris the European tour of West Side Story, I was so overwhelmed that after the show I sat by the sand, by the river, and I decided that I had to come to New York to learn how to do what these extraordinary people were doing on that stage. And I did. I came here on September 1963. I was 23 years old. Taking classes, jazz classes, because I was a ballerina, so I had to learn how to do that thing that they do here. With a wonderful master choreographer, Matt Maddox, he asked me if I wanted to be in a Broadway show. And I said, okay. Now you have to understand, when I arrived here, I spoke three languages. Spanish, Italian, and French. English was a mystery to me. But there was one word that I really knew. I learned very well. And I used very often. Okay. And in, there I go with my Spanish. In retrospective, I think that that word opened a lot of doors for me. So therefore, three months after arriving here, I was on Broadway playing Rita Rio in What Makes Some Iran. I was lucky. I was good too. But I was lucky. While being in the show, I continue being a Broadway baby for a while. While being in the show promises promises, Michael Bennett asked me to be his assistant in his next show, Coco, and the following one, Follies. Working with him, I walk in me the hunger for creativity. Michael encouraged me to become a choreographer. And recommended me for jobs. When I stopped looking at myself in the mirror and put it behind me, I discovered a challenging and exciting world. A few years later, I also started directing. Why not? I learned from all the masters I work with, teachers, choreographers, directors, that who show me the way to express myself, therefore, as moved and grateful I am for this award, I must share it with all the artists who made me who I am, including you, Michael John. Before I leave you, Are you taking my place? Okay. Before I leave you, I'd like to share with you some words from Martha Graham, which have inspired me for a long time and still do. There is a vitality, a life force, an energy, a quickening that is translated into action. And because there's only one of you in all of time, this expression is unique. And if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium and be lost. The world will not have it. It is not your business to determine how good it is, nor how valuable, nor how it compares with other expressions. It is your business to keep yours clearly and directly, to keep the channel open. You do not even have to believe in yourself or your work. You have to keep open and aware directly to the urges that motivate you. Keep the channel open. Thank you, Martha. And thank you to all of you for being here. I wish you a very fulfilling life. And may the gods of the theater bless you all. Congratulations, Graciella. That's so wonderful. Michael John, did I say your last name correctly? It's LaCusa, right? Or LaCusa? No, LaCusa. I knew him a long time. Who's LaCusa? No, it's LaCusa. Okay. LaCusa. All right. This has been such an inspiring night. God. Now I want to introduce Susan Bernfield, one of the co-chairs of the advocacy committee. And welcome back to the stage, Catherine Porter, who is also a co-chair of that committee. Ladies. I'm Susan. You remember Catherine. Do you remember where you were when you first saw the Kilroy's hashtag parody raid? Nope. Well, actually I do. And I almost fell off my chair in my office. Here was some viable, supremely witty action. Action can beget progress. Yeah, but it also begets more action. And in a time since here at the league, we've become a lot more activists. Thank you very much. And thank all of you. And now I see action all over. Yeah, it felt a little lonely in 2011 when a few excellent members of the league fired up an early parody initiative, 50-50 in 2020. Those pre-hashtag days. And now look at us. 2020. That's getting real. We are certainly on the road. What exit? Not getting off, moving forward. Theater people and their metaphors. 2020 is a biggie. The Kilroy's are back. It's also the year of the Jubilee, which is a challenge to every theater in America to produce a season of work by underrepresented people. And we get to look forward to seasons from women artistic directors who just in the past year, and I may not have them all, I know they were already mentioned, but I want to say them what they are, who just in the past year have commandeered Hartford Stage, Center Stage, Portland Center Stage, St. Louis Rep, Berkeley Rep, Woolly Mammoth, ACT, and the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. Yeah. We can go back another year and mention Paige as well. Yeah. Is that all? Even if we're still a bit low on production numbers yet, we are getting the power. I like power. I'm really happy with power. Last year at this event, you unveiled hashtag One More Conversation, our hiring initiative around parody for women in all disciplines of our field. And I hope you all have been and will continue to expand your circles and processes by having that One More Conversation with a woman designer, collaborator, staffer, board member, pogo stick jumper, whatever you got. This year, finally, with all this groundswell, we filled the road under our feet. But we also got to take a turn driving. So take out your phones, as said hours ago. Tell everybody you're here with the original Kilroy's and all these other amazing change makers. So many friends here, what an amazing, amazing evening. But use the hashtag road to parody and throw in an extra One More Conversation while you're at it. That was your line. Sorry. It's OK. Yeah. Well, what the heck? Help us acknowledge how far we've come and stay activated. Keep a lookout, see the work of women and shows with all women creative teams. Throw in a little road to parody. Tonight, of course, an all year round. Remove just one vowel, and parody is a party. We're almost there. Thank you, Nancy. Back to you. Thank you. Thanks, Susan and Catherine. Thanks, Catherine and Susan. Thanks, Susan and Catherine. I was earlier making the mistake, road to party, because I guess that's the word. But it's parody. So anyway, first off, let me just say what an honor it is to be here tonight and how inspired you all have made me. I could cry. I'm a writer. I've had my moments of frustration and doubt. I've been inspired by male writers and white people, because you do that when you're the other, right, the other. And it's just so wonderful to see maybe the scales begin to shift. And you all will inspire many people, because we can all find common ground. So God bless you. Thank you. Thank you. Keep hashtag road to parody in mind as you join us all and continue the celebration at Bee Bar and Grill. So get this. When you leave the Sheen Center, turn right and walk one block to Bowery. Turn left and walk three blocks to East 4th Street. That's Bee Bar. Take a left to get to the entrance, which is on East 4th Street. Please bring your souvenir journal, since it will be your ticket to the after party. And I want to once again congratulate all the awardees and thank you to our wonderful presenters, league members, sponsors, volunteers, and supporters for an inspiring and successful evening. Rock on, ladies.