Christopher Plummer Will Present Helen Mirren with The Shakespeare Medal Next Month

On June 1 from 6-8 pm, The Shakespeare Society will host their third annual Playing Shakespeare Celebration at The Players (16 Gramercy Park South). Christopher Plummer will present The Shakespeare Medal to Dame Helen Mirren, and Daniel Sullivan will present The Linda Gross Playing Shakespeare Award to Lily Rabe. Unexpected circumstances will prevent Ms. Rabe from attending, and her former co-star Marsha Stephanie Blake (Broadway's The Merchant of Venice, Django Unchained, Orange is the New Black) will accept the award on Ms. Rabe's behalf.

The Shakespeare Medal is awarded in recognition of extraordinary contribution to the appreciation of the Bard. Previous recipients include Professor Harold Bloom, Claire Bloom, Sir Derek Jacobi, Sir Peter Hall, Christopher Plummer, Michael Kahn, Richard Easton, and Sir Kenneth Branagh.

The Linda Gross Playing Shakespeare Award is in recognition of Linda Gross, and her enduring commitment to the theater, actors, and Shakespeare in performance. It is given to a promising young actor in the early years of their career playing Shakespeare, to encourage them to become honest guardians of Shakespeare's plays. The inaugural award was given in 2013, and previous recipients include Jacob Fishel and Hamish Linklater.

Ticket holders will join special guests for cocktails, canapés, a silent auction, and awards. The online auction accompanying the event will conclude at the end of the evening.

Tickets are $150 ($113 tax-deductible) and can be purchased online at shakespearesociety.org/events.html or by calling (212) 967-6802. For additional information, contact Michelle Palmour mpalmour@shakespearesociety.org or (212) 967-6802.

The Shakespeare Society is a non-profit organization dedicated to increasing the enjoyment, understanding, and appreciation of William Shakespeare's works through performance, commentary, and educational activities. A portion of the Society's membership dollars is used to support educational activities in New York City Schools.

HELEN MIRREN has won international recognition for her work on stage, screen and television. For her portrayal of Queen Elizabeth II in 2006 of The Queen, she received an Academy Award®, Golden Globe, Screen Actors Guild (SAG) Award, and BAFTA Award for Best Actress. She was also named Best Actress by virtually every critic's organization from Los Angeles to London. In 2014 she was honored with the BAFTA Fellowship for her outstanding career in film. Mirren can also currently be seen on the Broadway stage, reprising of her role as Queen Elizabeth II in The Audience, directed by Stephen Daldry, for which she received a Tony nomination. Mirren began her career in the role of Cleopatra at the National Youth Theatre. She then joined the Royal Shakespeare Company, where she starred in such productions as Troilus and Cressida and Macbeth. In 1972, she joined renowned director Peter Brook's theatre company and toured the world. Mirren earned her first Oscar® nomination for her portrayal of Queen Charlotte in Nicholas Hytner's The Madness of King George, for which she also won Best Actress honors at the 1994 Cannes Film Festival. Her second Oscar® nomination came for her work in Robert Altman's 2001 film Gosford Park. Her performance as the housekeeper also brought her Golden Globe and BAFTA Award nominations, several critics groups' awards, and dual SAG Awards, one for Best Supporting Actress and a second as part of the winning ensemble cast. Most recently, Mirren earned both Oscar and Golden Globe nominations for her performance in The Last Station, playing Sofya Tolstoy. Among her other film credits are The Tempest, directed by Julie Taymor. Mirren has also worked extensively in the theatre. Most recently reprising her role of Queen Elizabeth II in The Audience in London's West End, for which she won the Olivier Award for Best Actress. She also received an Olivier Award nomination for Best Actress for her performance in Mourning Becomes Electra at London's National Theatre. In 2009, Mirren returned to the National Theatre to star in the title role in Phèdre, directed by Sir Nicholas Hytner. Helen Mirren became a Dame of the British Empire in 2003.

LILY RABE will star in Cymbeline this summer at The Public Theater's Shakespeare in the Park. She appeared last summer as Beatrice in the Park production of Much Ado About Nothing, as well as the 2012 Park production of As You Like It as Rosalind, and the 2010 Park production of The Merchant of Venice as Portia, opposite Al Pacino. She has starred on Broadway in Seminar (Drama League nomination), The Merchant of Venice (Tony, Outer Critics Circle and Drama Desk nominations; Callaway Award), The American Plan, Heartbreak House (Outer Critics Circle nomination, Callaway Award), and Steel Magnolias (Drama Desk nomination). Her Off-Broadway and regional credits include Miss Julie, A Doll's House, Crimes of the Heart, Colder Than Here, Proof, and others. Rabe's upcoming film credits include Pawn Sacrificedirected by Ed Zwick and The Veil. Other film credits include All Good Things, Letters from the Big Man, Weakness, Aftermath, What Just Happened, The Toe Tactic, No Reservations, A Crime, Mona Lisa Smile, Never Again, and Beyond Redemption. She has been in all four seasons of Ryan Murphy's Emmy and Golden Globe nominated FX series "American Horror Story" (for which she received a 2012 Critics Choice Nomination) and recurs on "The Good Wife." Additionally she stars in the upcoming series "The Whispers" produced by Steven Spielberg.

CHRISTOPHER PLUMMER has enjoyed almost 60 years as one of the theatre's most respected actors and as a veteran of over 100 motion pictures. He has won two Tony Awards for the musical Cyrano and for Barrymore plus seven Tony nominations, his latest for his King Lear (2004) and for his Clarence Darrow in Inherit the Wind (2007); also three Drama Desk Awards and the National Arts Club Medal. A former leading member of the Royal National Theatre under Sir Laurence Olivier and the Royal Shakespeare Company under Sir Peter Hall, where he won London's Evening Standard Award for Best Actor in Becket; he has also led Canada's Stratford Festival in its formative years under Sir Tyrone Guthrie and Michael Langham. Since Sidney Lumet introduced him to the screen in Stage Struck (1958), his range of notable films include The Man Who Would Be King, Battle of Britain, Waterloo, Fall of The Roman Empire, Star Trek VI, Twelve Monkeys and the 1965 Oscar-winning The Sound of Music. More recent films include The Insider (as Mike Wallace; the National Film Critics Award), the acclaimed A Beautiful Mind, Man in the Chair, Must Love Dogs, National Treasure, Syriana and Inside Man. His TV appearances, which number close to 100, include the Emmy-winning BBC Hamlet at Elsinore playing the title role; the Emmy-winning productions The Thornbirds, Nuremberg, Little Moon of Alban and HBO's Muhammad Ali's Greatest Fight earning him seven Emmy nominations and taking home two Emmys. In 1968, sanctioned by Elizabeth II, he was invested as a Companion of the Order of Canada (an honorary knighthood). Plummer's more recent projects include playing the great novelist Tolstoy opposite Helen Mirren in The Last Station for Sony Classics where he received his first Academy Award nomination in 2010. He followed that up the next year with another nomination and a win for Best Supporting Actor in Beginners from writer/director Mike Mills and appeared in David Fincher's The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo that same year.

MARSHA STEPHANIE BLAKE has appeared on Broadway as Nerissa in The Merchant of Venice, directed by Daniel Sullivan and starring Al Pacino and Lily Rabe, in The Crucible with Liam Neeson and Laura Linney and Joe Turner's Come and Gone, for which she was given the Paul Green Award by Tony Kushner. Her Off-Broadway credits include An Octoroon and Marie Antoinette at Soho Rep, Luck of the Irish at LCT3, Hurt Village (for which she won an Audelco Award), Queens Boulevard at Signature Theatre and This Beautiful City with The Civilians. Film and television credits include Stand Clear of the Closing Doors (winner, Best Feature Jury Award, Tribeca 2013), Django Unchained, The Architect, "Law & Order," "Law & Order: SVU", "The Big C", "ElemeNtarY", "Chicago PD" and Hannah's publisher Lyndrea in HBO's "Girls." She will recur as Tina in the Steven Spielberg produced/ Edward Burns directed "Public Morals" on TNT, as Michelle in Showtime's "Happyish" and as Berdie in the upcoming Season 3 of "Orange Is The New Black." She lives in Brooklyn, NY with her husband and daughters.