What do Tony-winning “Waitress” star Jessie Mueller and Academy Award winner Lupita Nyong’o have in common with feminist icon Gloria Steinem? They’ll all be on hand at the Signature Theatre May 23 for the 7th Annual Lilly Awards!
Held each year to celebrate women in theater, reps for the Lilly Awards announced May 16 that they’ve added Mueller, Kathy Najimy, Genne Murphy, Candis Jones, Rehana Lew Mirza, and the creatives behind Irish activist group “Waking the Feminists” to their 2016 honorees. The list already included heavy-hitting theater-makers such as Danai Gurira, Martha Plimpton, Kate Whoriskey, and Mia Katigbak. Steinem, Nyong’o, and the rest of the “Eclipsed” women will be presenting the awards along with Lloyd Suh, Russell G. Jones, Rachel Chavkin, and Neena Beeber.
The Angel Band Project (the Norbert Leo Butz–founded organization that provides music therapy for survivors of sexual and domestic violence) will also receive special recognition that evening. Rebecca Naomi Jones, Amanda Green, and Georgia Stitt are slated for special musical performances at the Signature. Further, the awards ceremony will also reveal this year’s recipient of the Stacey Mindich Prize, a $25,000 award to fund a new work by a female playwright, and the Leah Ryan Prize, a cash sum, plus a New York City reading for a second on-the-rise female playwright.
For more information and to get tickets to the annual event, visit thelillyawards.org.
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