Princess Grace Foundation USA Announces 2018 Princess Grace Award Winners In Theater, Dance & Film

The Princess Grace Foundation-USA (PGF-USA) has announced the winners of the 2018 Princess Grace Awards. The Awards will be presented at the annual Princess Grace Awards Gala and continue the legacy of Princess Grace (Kelly) of Monaco, who helped emerging artists pursue their artistic goals during Her lifetime. In total, the Foundation is awarding over $1 million to artists in theater, dance, and film. In the presence of Her Serene Highness The Princess of Monaco, this year's Gala will be held at Cipriani 25 Broadway on October 16, 2018. The evening will be co-chaired by Dennis and Phyllis Washington and Anne Sweeney and Phillip Miller.

For the tenth year in a row, celebrated artist Alex Soldier, known for his mastery of precious miniatures, has created an objet d'art to represent the Princess Grace Awards. The Award, realized as a wearable pin, symbolically combines the three art forms lauded by the Foundation: theater, dance, and film by using precious metals and Swarovski crystal accents.

Winners of the Awards for theater, dance and film who distinguish themselves in their artistic disciplines since receiving their Princess Grace Awards are eligible to for the Foundation's Princess Grace Statue Award. This year, Sam Gold, Tony Award winning director for Fun Home and Kyle Abraham, Bessie Award winner and founder of the dance company Abraham.In.Motion (A.I.M) will each receive Princess Grace Statue Awards. In addition to a $25,000 unrestricted cash gift, Kyle and Sam will be presented with a bronze statue of Princess Grace created by the Dutch artist Kees Verkade. To date, sixty-six artists have received this Award.

Toby E. Boshak, Executive Director of the Princess Grace Foundation-USA shared, "It is our pleasure to announce the 2018 Princess Grace Award winners, who represent some of the nation's most outstanding emerging performing artists. We look forward to following these artists' careers and continuing to help them throughout their artistic journeys. This year's Princess Grace Statue Award recipients, choreographer Kyle Abraham and director Sam Gold have excelled in their crafts, creating groundbreaking work and enriching the artistic landscape for the 21st century. Kyle and Sam epitomize the artistic excellence for which this Award stands and serve as incredible role models for this next generation of Princess Grace Award winners."

This year's Princess Grace Award winners are:

For Theater: Liz Fisher/Texas State University Moses Ingram/Yale School of Drama (Grace Le Vine Theater Award), Jamar Ramaj/New York University (Fabergé Theater Award), Sara Bruner/Oregon Shakespeare Festival (Gant Gaither Theater Award), Maria Cristina Fuste/Merrimack Repertory Theater (Pierre Cardin Theater Award), Louisa Proske/Red Bull Theater (Robert & Gloria Hausman Theater Award); Vichet Chum/New Dramatists (Playwriting Fellowship); Miranda Haymon/Roundabout Theatre (Honorarium), Erick Lindsey/Bluff City Theater (Honorarium).

For Dance Performance: Matthew Gilmore/The Julliard School, Aliza Russell/New York University, David Adrian Freedland/L.A Dance Project, Marcella Lewis/Abraham.In.Motion, Sydney Dolan/Pennsylvania Ballet (Chris Hellman Dance Award), Catherine Hurlin/American Ballet Theatre (Barbara & John Lehman Dance Award).

For Choreography: Claudia Schreier/Dance Theatre of Harlem, Shamel Pitts/Gibney Dance Company, Dana Genshaft/The Washington Ballet.

For Film:

Jenna Caravello/California Institute of the Arts (Stephen Hillenburg Animation Scholarship), Johnson Cheng/Columbia University (Cary Grant Film Award), Anaiis Cisco/San Franscisco State University (Louis D. Srybnik Film Award), Keely Kernan/Emerson College, Sarah Riazati/Duke University (John H. Johnson Film Award), Samantha Lane/California Institute of the Arts (Dick and Noelle Wolf Film Award), Jon Wang/Bard College (Honorarium), Clark Burnett/Yale University (Honorarium), Rafael Samanez/The City College of New York (Honorarium).

Special Project grants and Works in Progress residencies at the Baryshnikov Arts Center are available to Princess Grace Award and Honoraria recipients for uniquely significant projects that advance their artistic development. This year's winners are:

Special Project Awards: Javier Briones, Virginia Grise, Raja Feather Kelly, Robyn Mineko Williams, Jonathan Payne, Raul O. Paz Pastrana, Natalija Vekic

Works in Progress Residencies: Gisela Cardenas, Pavel Zustiak

The Princess Grace Foundation-USA is a non-profit, publicly-supported foundation, headquartered in New York City and founded 36 years ago by Prince Rainier III of Monaco to honor his wife, Princess Grace's [Kelly] legacy. The Foundation's mission is to identify and assist emerging talent in theater, dance, and film by awarding grants in the form of scholarships, apprenticeships, and fellowships. Since its inception the Foundation has given awards to nearly 800 recipients. Some notable Princess Grace Award recipients in Film include: Emmy winner Cary Fukunaga, director of HBO's "True Detective", Jane Eyre and Beasts of No Nation; Greg Mottola director of Superbad, "Arrested Development", and Amazon's The Dangerous Book for Boys; Stephen Hillenburg, creator of SpongeBob SquarePants. Theater recipients include: Tony Award winner for Best Direction of a Play, Anna D. Shapiro; Pulitzer and Tony Award winning playwright Tony Kushner; Golden Globe Award winner Oscar Isaac; and Tony Award winning actor Leslie Odom Jr. Dance/Choreography recipients include: Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater Artistic Director Robert Battle; American Ballet Theatre's Gillian Murphy and Isabella Boylston and New York City Ballet's Tiler Peck; as well as choreographers Camille A. Brown and Michelle Dorrance.

For more information about the Princess Grace Awards program, please visit www.pgfusa.org