Actors Equity Foundation Announces Winner of St. Clair Bayfield Award

Andy Grotelueschen has received the annual St. Clair Bayfield Award presented by the Actors Equity Foundation for his performance as Launce in the Fiasco Theater's production of Two Gentlemen of Verona. The announcement was made by Arne Gundersen, President of the Foundation, and Joan Glazer, Managing Director.

The award will be presented at Actors' Equity Association's Eastern Regional Membership Meeting at 2 pm on Friday, January 8, 2016 at the Equity office, 165 West 46th Street, New York City.

The multi-talented Grotelueschen, who admits to having such special skills as playing several stringed and percussion instruments, speaking in various regional dialects and doing "scary backward talking," has appeared in regional theatres from New York (The Acting Company) to Minneapolis (The Guthrie) and previously acted in Shakespeare's Cymbeline and Henry V. Earlier in 2015 he pulled triple duty playing three roles (Milky White, Florinda and Rapunzel's Prince) as a member of the ten-person cast of Roundabout Theatre's presentation of the McCarter Theatre/Fiasco Theater production of Stephen Sondheim's Into the Woods. He received his Master of Fine Arts degree in Theatre Studies from Brown University/Trinity Rep. Theatre for a New Audience: Cymbeline, Taming of the Shrew and Two Gentlemen of Verona.

Established in 1973 in memory of Equity member St. Clair Bayfield, the award honors the best performance in a supporting role by an Actor in a Shakespearean play in the New York City metropolitan area. The recipient receives a $1,000 check and an engraved crystal plaque.

The Judges for the Bayfield Award are: Joe Dziemianowicz, Daily News: Adam Feldman, Time Out New York; Susan Haskins, Theater Talk; Harry Haun, Playbill; and David Rosenberg, The Hour Newspapers.

Previous recipients of the St. Clair Bayfield Award include: Carmen DeLavalade, Dana Ivey, Charles Kimbrough, Nathan Lane, Brian Murray, Bradley Whitford, and, in 2014, Amanda Quaid

The Actors Equity Foundation is a philanthropic and humanitarian nonprofit organization created in 1962 to aid and assist members of the acting profession and to promote the theatre arts. It is separate from Actors Equity Association and is funded by estate bequests and individual donations.