Award-winning theatre, opera, and film director Julie Taymor will be honored at the 2013 Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art First Awards at the Brooklyn Museum on June 13 from 6:30 to 9 p.m. The award, which honors women who have broken gender barriers to make remarkable contributions in their fields, will be bestowed on Taymor, winner of the Tony Award for Best Direction of a Musical in 1998. It will be presented by Museum Trustee Elizabeth A. Sackler and followed by a conversation between Taymor and feminist icon Gloria Steinem.
Tickets to this event are $200 ($150 for Brooklyn Museum Members and Members of the Council for Feminist Art) and will include admission to a private cocktail reception following the presentation and conversation. Proceeds will benefit the exhibition and educational programming offered by the Brooklyn Museum and its Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art, the first and only organization of its kind. To purchase tickets and for further information, contact Mira Abramsohn at
mira.abramsohn@brooklynmuseum.org or
(718) 501-6589.
In 1998
Julie Taymor became the first woman to receive the Tony Award for Best Direction of a Musical, and won a Tony for Best Costumes, for her production of The Lion King. The musical has gone on to become Broadway's all-time highest-grossing show and the fifth longest-running show in Broadway history.
Taymor's 1996 Broadway debut, Juan Darién: A Carnival Mass, earned five Tony nominations. Her other theater credits include The Green Bird, Titus Andronicus, The Tempest, The Taming of the Shrew, The Transposed Heads, and Liberty's Taken. She is currently developing a new adaptation of
William Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream, which will premiere in the fall of 2013 as the inaugural production at Theatre for a New Audience's permanent new home in downtown Brooklyn. Taymor's feature films include Titus; Frida, which won two Academy Awards; the Beatles-inspired Across the Universe, nominated for a Golden Globe for Best Motion Picture--Musical or Comedy; and her adaptation of Shakespeare's The Tempest. Taymor has also directed five operas, among them Oedipus Rex with
Jessye Norman, for which she earned the International Classical Music Award for Best Opera Production and an Emmy for a subsequent film version, as well as Salomé, The Flying Dutchman, Die Zauberflöte (in repertory at the Metropolitan Opera), The Magic Flute (the abridg
Ed English version, which inaugurated the PBS series Great Performances at the Met), and
Elliot Goldenthal's Grendel.
The Sackler Center First Awards were inaugurated in 2012 in celebration of the fifth anniversary of the Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art at the Brooklyn Museum. They were presented to fifteen women who were the first in their fields: Associate Justice of the Supreme Court Sandra Day O'Connor (Ret.),
Marin Alsop,
Connie Chung,
Dr. Johnnetta B. Cole, Wilhel
Mina Cole Holladay, Sandy Lerner, Lucy R. Lippard, Wilma Mankiller (deceased), Toni Morrison, Linda Nochlin,
Jessye Norman, Judith Rodin,
Muriel Siebert,
Susan Stroman, and
Faye Wattleton.
Since its founding in 2007, the Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art has fulfilled its commitment to the past, present, and future of feminist art. Using its award-winning exhibition and education spaces, the Sackler Center strives to raise awareness of feminism's cultural contributions. Dialogue and debate about feminist art, theory, and activism take place in the Sackler Center's Forum, and groundbreaking exhibitions are held in its Feminist Art and Herstory galleries. Currently on view in the galleries are"Workt by Hand": Hidden Labor and Historical Quilts, through September 15, and Käthe Kollwitz: Prints from the "War" and "Death" Portfolios, through November 10. The Council for Feminist Art, a membership group enjoying the benefits of special events, supports the ongoing educational programming and the continuing success of the Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art.
The Sackler Center First Awards were conceived by their benefactor, Elizabeth Sackler. A public historian, arts activist, American Indian advocate, and matron of the arts, she was elected to the Board of Trustees of the Brooklyn Museum in 2000. Elizabeth A. Sackler, Ph.D., is president of the Arthur M. Sackler Foundation. A writer and lecturer, she has been the recipient of numerous awards and citations, among them ArtTable's prestigious Distinguished Service to the Visual Arts Award in 2006 and the Jewish Women's Archive 2012 "Making Trouble/Making History" award.
