Du Boff, Page 73, & Voice & Vision to Receive Awards

Sound designer Jill BC Du Boff and the theatre companies Page 73 Productions and Voice & Vision will received awards from the League of Professional Theatre Women, Lynne Rogers, president, during ceremonies at Sardi's, 234 West 44th Street, today (Thursday, June 12, at noon).

The League's Ruth Morley Designing Women Award, established in 1998, went for the first time to a sound designer, Jill BC Du Boff.  She received the award from internationally acclaimed composer, percussionist, performer and sound designer David Van Tieghem, known for his collaborations with Laurie Anderson and David Byrne.

Ms. Du Boff has designed the sound for Broadway shows such as The Constant Wife, The Good Body and such Off Broadway shows as Beebo Brinker Chronicles, Spain, and Well.

The League's Lucille Lortel Award, $2500 granted annually to a theater showing great creative promise, went to Page 73 Productions which, for 11 years, has provided a home for developing and producing new work by early-career playwrights.  Accepting the award is Elizabeth Jones, the company's Founder and Executive Director.

The League's newest award, the Lucille Lortel Women's Visionary Award, was given for the first time.  Receiving the $1000 award was Voice & Vision, a New York-based company that develops work with women at the core and provides them with time, space and resources to create in an environment free from commercial pressures.  Accepting the award will be Jean Wagner, Voice & Vision's Artistic Director.

Ruth Morley Designing Women Award will go for the first time to a sound designer, Jill BC Du Boff.

Founded in 1981 by Julia Miles who also founded Women's Project in 1978, the League of Professional Theatre Women www.theatrewomen.org is an advocacy organization for reinforcing the positive image, promoting the visibility, and increasing the opportunities for women in the arts and entertainment industries, particularly the professional theatre. The League membership of over 300 women represents a diversity of theatre professionals in both the commercial and not-for-profit sectors and includes actors, administrators, agents, arrangers, casting directors, choreographers, company managers, composers, theatre critics and scholars, designers, directors, dramaturgs, educators, general managers, historians, journalists, librettists, lyricists, press agents, producers, stage managers and theatre technicians.

In the early 1980s, despite the fact that women were a potent force in establishing the regional theatre movement, there were very few female artistic directors at the major regional theatres and a dearth of women writing plays and directing in the commercial theatre.

In the early years a major thrust of the League was networking, redefining the old boy network for the new woman.  The League has expanded its programs to include various types of services to the entire field of women in the performing arts, both in the United States and internationally.