Hugh Jackman, Sarah Jessica Parker, and More Set for New 42nd Street Gala Tonight

The New 42nd Street Gala, in celebration of the New Victory Education Programs, will honor the Australia Council for the Arts with the New Victory Arts Award tonight, December 5, 2012. The annual event will feature a special performance by the Melbourne-based Australian troupe Circus Oz at The New Victory Theater, followed by a dinner reception at The Liberty Theater.

The event will be co-chaired by Adelina Wong Ettelson, Sarah Jessica Parker and Fiona Howe Rudin, Chairman of The New 42nd Street. Honorary Chairs for the event are Deborra-Lee Furness and Hugh Jackman. Gala Vice Chairs are Julie Singer Scanlan and Philip H. Scanlan, Consul General of Australia in New York. The Gala Committee includes Jill Bikoff, Emily and Len Blavatnik, Donya and Scott Bommer, Isaac Mizrahi and Arnold Germer, and Wendi Murdoch. Thomson Reuters is the Gala Corporate Sponsor for the third consecutive year.

The New Victory Arts Award is presented to a person or organization that has used their public position and powers of persuasion to help bring kids to the arts and the arts to kids. Past recipients include Tony Awards® recipient Bill Irwin and Cheryl Henson, President of The Jim Henson Foundation.

“The New 42nd Street is honored that the Australia Council for the Arts has agreed to accept this year’s New Victory Arts Award in recognition of its longstanding support of enlightened work for kids. Since The New Victory Theater opened in 1995, we have presented 22 compelling, inventive and magical works from 16 companies hailing from across Australia,” said Cora Cahan, President of The New 42nd Street.

The New 42nd Street Gala will begin at 7:00 PM with the award presentation and an excerpt of Circus Oz: From the Ground Up at The New Victory Theater (209 West 42nd Street), immediately followed by a dinner reception at The Liberty Theater (234 West 42nd Street).

Tickets to the New 42nd Street Gala start at $1,000 and table prices start at $10,000. For more information and tickets, visit www.new42gala.org or call 646-553-3475.

The Australia Council for the Arts is the Australian Government’s arts funding and advisory body. The Council collaborates to build new audiences, foster philanthropic support and deepen understanding of the arts through research. Each year, the Council delivers more than $160 million in funding for arts organizations and individual artists throughout Australia. Since 1997, The New Victory Theater has proudly presented 22 works from 16 companies across Australia. The Australia Council for the Arts has generously and tirelessly made this possible.

An independent, nonprofit organization, The New 42nd Street was created to assume long-term responsibility and oversight for seven historic theaters on 42ndStreet between 7th and 8th Avenues. The projects of The New 42nd Street include: The New Victory Theater, a performing arts theater devoted to kids and families; the New42nd Street Studios, a state-of-the-art, 10-story rehearsal studio/office/theater “complex”, and The Duke on 42nd Street, an intimate 200-seat black-box theater that opened in 2000 and is available on a rentalbasis to international and domestic nonprofit and commercial performing arts organizations to present their work.

Since The New Victory Theater opened its doors in 1995, it has become a cultural rite of passage for young New Yorkers, their families and schoolmates. The New Victory seeks sophisticated, thought-provoking and professional productions that are as artistically rich as they are entertaining, resulting in season after season of multidisciplinary works from around the globe and close to home. The theater’s contributions to the cultural landscape of the city were recently celebrated by the prestigious New York critics’ organization, The Drama Desk, which presented The New Victory Theater with a 2012 Special Award for “providing enchanting, sophisticated children’s theater that appeals to the child in all of us, and for nurturing a love of theater in young people.”

The multidisciplinary and international productions on New Victory stages inform and inspire the work of the award-winning New Victory Education Programs through a dynamic combination of school and public programs. Through the award-winning New Victory Partnership Program, 32,000 pre-K-12 students visit The New Victory Theater at just $2 per ticket (the same price they were when The New Victory opened in 1995!) and participate in FREE classroom workshops taught by an exceptional team of New Victory Teaching Artists. Many Education Partners are NYC-area Title I schools, with a high percentage of students who would be unable to experience live theater if it weren’t for The New Victory. Working with the New Victory Front of House staff, the Education Department also oversees the New Vic/New 42 Youth Corps, a job training program that provides 37,500 hours of paid employment and professional development to high school and college-age youth each season. Families who attend the New Vic together pair their theater-going with New Victory Family Workshops as well as in-theater exhibits and arts activities. Together, these nationally-recognized programs exemplify the New Vic’s long-standing commitment to the intrinsic value of cultural participation in the lives ofyoung people and families.