Photo Flash: Go Inside the 16th Annual Fred Ebb Awards Virtual Ceremony

On Monday night, The Fred Ebb Foundation in association with the Roundabout Theatre Company presented the sixteenth annual Fred Ebb Award for aspiring musical theatre songwriters to the team of Ben Bonnema & Christopher Staskel, and Michael R. Jackson.

The Fred Ebb Award recognizes excellence in musical theatre songwriting, by a songwriter or songwriting team that has not yet achieved significant commercial success. The award is meant to encourage and support aspiring songwriters to create new works for the musical theatre. The prize includes a $60,000 award. In addition to the monetary prize, the Fred Ebb Foundation will produce a one-night-only showcase of the winner's work. The Fred Ebb Foundation is funded by royalties from Mr. Ebb's vast catalogue of work. Past winners include John Bucchino (2005), Steve Lutvak & Robert L. Freedman (2006), Peter Mills (2007), Adam Gwon (2008), Marcy Heisler & Zina Goldrich (2009), Douglas J. Cohen (2010), Jeff Blumenkrantz (2011), Sam Willmott (2012), Michael Kooman & Christopher Dimond (2013), Chris Miller & Nathan Tysen (2014), Stacey Luftig & Phillip Palmer (2015), Thomas Mizer & Curtis Moore (2016), Shaina Taub (2017), Will Reynolds & Eric Price (2018), and Angela Sclafani and Benjamin Velez (2019).

The selection panel is comprised of Foundation Trustee Mitchell S. Bernard; actress Janet Dacal; actress Natascia Diaz; actress Celia Keenan-Bolger; and music director David Loud. Each year, the Foundation also makes a donation to Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS.