20th Annual Fred Ebb Award To Be Presented Tonight at The Todd Haimes Theater

The Fred Ebb Foundation in association with the Roundabout Theatre Company will present the twentieth annual Fred Ebb Award for aspiring musical theatre songwriters to the team of Cheeyang Ng & Eric Sorrels. The award, named in honor of the late award-winning lyricist Fred Ebb, will be presented by Debra Monk tonight, Monday December 2nd from 6-8pm at a by-invitation-only ceremony in the Penthouse Lounge of The Todd Haimes Theater.

The Fred Ebb Award recognizes excellence in musical theatre songwriting, by a songwriter or songwriting team that has not yet achieved significant commercial success. The award is meant to encourage and support aspiring songwriters to create new works for the musical theatre. The prize includes a $60,000 award. The Fred Ebb Foundation is funded by royalties from Mr. Ebb's vast catalogue of work. Past winners include John Bucchino (2005); Steve Lutvak & Robert L. Freedman (2006); Peter Mills (2007); Adam Gwon (2008); Marcy Heisler & Zina Goldrich (2009); Douglas J. Cohen (2010); Jeff Blumenkrantz (2011); Sam Willmott (2012); Michael Kooman & Christopher Dimond (2013); Chris Miller & Nathan Tysen (2014); Stacey Luftig & Phillip Palmer (2015); Thomas Mizer & Curtis Moore (2016); Shaina Taub (2017); Will Reynolds & Eric Price (2018); Angela Sclafani and Benjamin Velez (2019); Ben Bonnema & Christopher Staskel and Michael R. Jackson (2020); Isabella Dawis & Tidtaya Sinutoke (2021); Julia Riew (2022); and Freya Catrin Smith & Jack Williams (2023).

The selection panel is comprised of Foundation Trustee Mitchell S. Bernard, actor Julie Benko, music director David Loud, and actor Solea Pfeiffer. Each year, the Foundation also makes a donation to Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS.

Cheeyang Ng

Born and raised in Singapore, Cheeyang Ng is an award-winning singer-songwriter who writes at the intersection of queer, Asian and immigrant stories. They have performed around the world, including Lincoln Center with Carole King and Carnegie Hall with Jason Robert Brown, and hold an MFA from New York University and a BMus from Berklee College of Music. They are the first Singaporean to headline a concert at Joe's Pub and Millennium Stage at Kennedy Center showcasing their original music and their songs have been performed around New York, including The Duplex and Feinstein's/54 Below. Creator of podcast “East Side Story” and vocal group The Lunar Collective, they have won multiple vocal awards all across Asia, including Singapore, Taiwan and China. Musicals in development include Eastbound (2022 Village Theatre Beta Development Production, 2020 NAMT) with Khiyon Hursey, MĀYĀ (2021 NAMT, ASCAP Workshop with Stephen Schwartz and upcoming development in London, UK) with Eric Sorrels and The Phoenix (Johnny Mercer Writers Grove at Goodspeed, Rhinebeck Writers Retreat) with Eric Sorrels and Desdemona Chiang. Their solo musical, Legendary is in development with Musical Theatre Factory and Goodspeed Musicals. Select credits include Princess Grace Award, Eric H Weinberger Librettist Award, Larson Grant Finalist, ASCAP Foundation Lucille & Jack Yellen Award, and is thrilled to be receiving the Fred Ebb Award. www.cheeyang.com @cheeyangmusic

Eric Sorrels

Originally from Tennessee, Eric Sorrels is an award-winning songwriter, librettist, singer, and arranger who is drawn to creating stories that blend personal and political themes. As an actor he has performed regionally in Raleigh (North Carolina Theatre, Theatre Raleigh) and Nashville (Nashville Repertory Theatre). He is a member of AGMA and sings regularly in professional choirs such Musica Sacra (Kent Tritle), Essential Voices USA (Judith Clurman), and the choirs of St. John the Divine and Temple E-Manuel. He's also the resident music director for the Voice Studio of Katy Wolfe. His work has been showcased in concert at venues such as Joe's Pub, 54 Below, and Millennium Stage at Kennedy Center. Musicals in development include: MĀYĀ (2023 ASCAP Workshop, 2021 NAMT) with Cheeyang Ng; The Phoenix (NAMT Frank Young Fund, Goodspeed Writers Grove, Rhinebeck Writers Retreat) with Desdemona Chiang and Cheeyang Ng; The Gray Man: A Pawleys Island Story (2025 Knoxville New Works Festival). Winner of the ASCAP Lucille & Jack Yellen Award and the Eric H Weinberger Librettist Award and honored to be this year's recipient of the Fred Ebb Award. BA: University of TN, Knoxville; MFA: NYU. @eric_sorrels

As a writer, lyricist, composer and director, Fred Ebb made incalculable contributions to the New York theatrical community. Mr. Ebb is a Tony, Grammy, Emmy, Olivier and Kennedy Center Honors Lifetime Achievement Award winning recipient. Fred Ebb's first professional songwriting assignment came in 1953 when he and Phil Springer were hired by Columbia Records to write a song for Judy Garland called "Heartbroken." Mr. Ebb was introduced to composer John Kander in 1964 by music publisher Tommy Valando and became one of the most legendary songwriting teams in American history. The first successful collaboration was on the song "My Coloring Book," recorded by Barbra Streisand. Their second theatrical collaboration, Flora, the Red Menace, created a star out of Liza Minnelli in her Tony Award-winning Broadway debut. In 1966, their collaboration Cabaret, opened and received seven Tony Awards including Best Musical and Best Score. A 1972 movie version of Cabaret starring Liza Minnelli was nominated for 10 Academy Awards and won eight awards and was nominated for nine Golden Globe Awards and won three including Best Picture, Musical or Comedy. The same year, the songwriting team wrote a number of songs for Minnelli's television special "Liza With a Z," which received an Emmy Award for Outstanding Single Program - Variety or Popular Music. In 1975, the two wrote the Broadway musical Chicago, directed by Bob Fosse and starring Gwen Verdon, Chita Rivera and Jerry Orbach. The musical was successfully revived 20 years later at City Center ENCORES! and subsequently transferred to Broadway where it is currently the longest running revival in Broadway history. In 1977, the team collaborated with Martin Scorsese on the movie New York, New York; the title song was introduced by Minnelli and later recorded by Frank Sinatra becoming the unofficial theme song of New York City. The Minnelli Broadway vehicle The Act also opened that year. After a four-year absence, Mr. Ebb and Mr. Kander returned with Woman of the Year (1981), The Rink (1984), Kiss of the Spiderwoman (1985) and Steel Pier (1997). They were honored by the Kennedy Center with a Lifetime Achievement Award in 1998. Miramax's 2002 feature film Chicago was nominated for 13 Academy Awards and won six, including Best Picture and was nominated for eight Golden Globe Awards and won three, including Best Picture, Musical or Comedy.

At the time of Mr. Ebb's passing, he and Mr. Kander were at work on several new musicals. Curtains, starring David Hyde Pierce and Debra Monk, debuted at CTG/Ahmanson Theatre in 2006 and came to Broadway in 2007, receiving a Tony nomination for Best Musical as well as a Best Score nomination for Kander & Ebb. In 2007, All About Us was staged at the Westport Country Playhouse. The Scottsboro Boys opened on Broadway in 2010 and received 12 Tony nominations, including Best Musical and Best Score, and in 2016 concluded a run in the West End at the Garrick Theatre. Rob Marshall and Sam Mendes's Tony Award-winning production of Cabaret returned to Broadway in 2014, with Alan Cumming reprising his role as the Emcee and Three-time Academy Award nominee Michelle Williams in her Broadway debut as Sally Bowles. The Visit, starring Chita Rivera and George Hearn, received a staging at DC's Signature Theatre in 2008, a concert staging in NYC in the fall of 2011, and a production in Williamstown, starring Chita Rivera and Roger Rees and directed by John Doyle. In the spring of 2015, The Visit opened on Broadway and received five Tony nominations, including Best Musical and Best Score for Kander & Ebb. New York, New York, the brand-new musical featuring a new score by John Kander and Fred Ebb, an original story by David Thompson and Sharon Washington, additional lyrics by Lin-Manuel Miranda and choreography and direction by Susan Stroman, opened on Broadway in the spring of 2023 and received nine Tony Award nominations. A new Broadway production of Cabaret, directed by Rebecca Frecknall, opened in the spring of 2024, and received nine Tony Award nominations.

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