2007 Village Voice Obie Awards Winners Announced

The 52^nd Annual Village Voice Obie Awards were presented this evening at a ceremony hosted by Cynthia Nixon and T.R. Knight at the Skirball Center for the Performing Arts on the campus of New York University. Given by the newspaper, The Village Voice, the awards for excellence in Off-Broadway theatre were presented by Michael Cerveris; Angela Lansbury; William Ivey Long; Camryn Manheim; Stephanie March; Terrence McNally; Liev Schreiber; and Anika Noni Rose.

The Village Voice Obie Awards Committee, which selects the winners, was chaired this season by Village Voice chief theater critic Michael Feingold. Fellow judges included former Obie Award winners Kirsten Childs, Ain Gordon, and Adam Rapp; as well as theater administrator Anne Dennin, critic Jeremy McCarter, and Voice theater critic Alexis Soloski.

Presenting sponsors for the 2007 Village Voice Obie Awards were the Skirball Center for the Performing Arts at NYU and Silk Vodka. Official sponsors were Macy's, Budweiser Select, Crunch Fitness, Sea Grape Wine Shop, and Chinatown Brasserie.

Winners of the Village Voice Obie Awards for the 2006-2007 season:

Lifetime Achievement Award: Alvin Epstein
Emerging Playwright Award ($1000 prize): Young Jean Lee
The Ross Wetzsteon Award ($2000 given annually to a theater nurturing
innovative new plays): Rattlestick Theatre
Performance:
Betsy Aidem, Sustained Excellence of Performance
Donna Lynne Champlin, The Dark At The Top Of The Stairs
Ron Cephas Jones, Sustained Excellence of Performance
Andre De Shields, Sustained Excellence of Performance
Ain Gordon, Stories Left To Tell
David Greenspan, Faust and Some Men
Nina Hellman, Trouble In Paradise
Nancy Opel, My Deah
Roslyn Ruff, Seven Guitars
James Saito, Durango
Michael Stuhlbarg, The Voysey Inheritance
Nilaja Sun, No Child
Harris Yulin, Frank's Home
Ensemble, Tale of 2Cities: (Winsome Brown, Michael Ray Escamilla,
Tracey A. Leigh, Leo Marks, Diane Rodriguez, Ed Vassallo, Heather
Woodbury)
 
    Playwriting:
Adam Bock, The Thugs
Direction:
Lou Bellamy, Two Trains Running
Anne Kauffman, The Thugs
Matthew Maguire, Abandon
Eirik Stubo, The Wild Duck
Chay Yew, Durango
Music and Choreography:
Michael Friedman, Sustained Excellence in Music
Bill T. Jones, Choreography, Spring Awakening
Lin-Manuel Miranda, Music and Lyrics, In the Heights
Design:
Beowulf Boritt Sustained Excellence in Set Design
Robert Kaplowitz Sustained Excellence in Sound Design
Rae Smith, Set and Costume Design, Oliver Twist
Special Citations:
Daniel Boyd Beaty, Writing and Performance, Emergence-SEE
Edward Hall & Propeller, Taming of the Shrew
Tim Crouch, An Oak Tree
The Living Theatre, Ensemble and director Judith Malina, The Brig
(Ensemble: Gene Ardor, Johnson Anthony, Kesh Baggan, Steven Scot Bono,
Gary Brackett, Brent Bradley, Brad Burgess, John Kohan, Albert Lamont,
Peter Lester, Jeff Nash, Josh Roberts, Bradford Rosenbloom,
Jade Rothman, Isaac Scranton, Morteza Tavakoli, Evan True,
Antwan Ward, Louis Williams and ensemble director Steven Ben Israel)

    
 
    Grants (totaling $10,000):
Transport Group
Peculiar Works Project
Synapse Productions
The Play Company