New 42's Cora Cahan Receives Floria V. Lasky Award

This evening, Cora Cahan, President of The New 42nd Street, will accept the Floria V. Lasky Award, given in recognition of her invaluable and indelible contributions to the cultural landscape of New York City.

"I'm pleased and proud to receive this honor, which pays tribute to a remarkable woman. Floria Lasky was a born-and-bred New Yorker who I met over 40 years ago. Her friendship coupled with her commitment to artists and to advancing the cultural life of this great city has always meant the world to me," says Ms. Cahan, who will be the third recipient of the Floria V. Lasky Award. It's namesake, who represented such clients as Jerome Robbins, Jule Styne, Elia Kazan, Tennessee Williams and Carson McCullers, was a leader in the field of entertainment law. Past recipients of this award include Paul H. Epstein and New York City Center, accepted by Arlene Shuler.

After a distinguished career as a dancer, Cora Cahan metamorphosed into an effective arts administrator, co-founding and serving as Executive Director of the Feld Ballet, developing the Lawrence A. Wien Center for Dance and Theater familiarly called "890 Broadway," and acquiring and transforming the Elgin Cinema into the award-winning Joyce Theater, New York's pre-eminent theater for dance.

In 1990, Cora Cahan was recruited to become President of The New 42nd Street, a non-profit organization established by New York State and New York City charged with restoring and finding appropriate uses for seven neglected historic theaters on the blighted block between Broadway and Eighth Avenue. The renewal of 42nd Street began in December 1995 with the rehabilitation and restoration of The New Victory Theater, New York's first theater entirely devoted to children and families. Over the course of the following ten years, The New 42nd Street initiated and supervised the transformation of the remaining theaters and designed, built and operates the New 42nd StreetStudios, a $34.7 million facility which houses rehearsal studios, offices, and a 199-seat black box theater, The Duke on 42nd Street, creating a permanent workplace for performing artists and the creative process on 42nd Street.

Ms. Cahan serves on the Boards of The Park Avenue Armory and The Times Square Alliance, is a member of Bessie Awards Steering Committee and is on the CalArts Board of Governors. She is Founder and Trustee Emeritus of both The Joyce Theater and Eliot Feld's Ballet Tech. She has served as a panelist for the National Endowment for the Arts and the New York State Council on the Arts. She has been a member of the Governor's Commission Honoring the Achievements of Women in New York State, and the Advisory Commission to the High School of the Performing Arts, and served on the Board of Directors of the Greenwich Village Historic Preservation Society, NYC & Company and The Center for Architecture Foundation (NY AIA). She has been the recipient of a number of awards for public service, including the 2001 New York State Governor's Arts Award.

Ms. Cahan is married to Bernard Gersten, Executive Producer of Lincoln Center Theater, and Jenny and Jilian are their two grown daughters.

The Floria V. Lasky Award is presented in conjunction with the Floria V. Lasky Symposium. Last year the Jerome Robbins Foundation and the Rockefeller Brothers Fund embarked on a new annual undertaking - The Lasky Symposium - with the intention of providing actionable information to our not-for-profit community while honoring Ms. Lasky's dedication to the cultural life of New York City. The Lasky 2012 Symposium focused on technology strategy, planning and implementation, and offered sessions featuring leaders in arts and culture. Lasky 2013 is devoted to "Embodying your Brand." In this context, "Brand" refers to the culture of an organization, and how that is conveyed both internally and externally.