The Village Voice Announces Judges For The 55th Annual Obie Awards, Ceremony Held 5/17/2010

The Village Voice, the nation's first and largest alternative weekly newspaper, announced the judges for the 55th Annual Village Voice Obie Awards. The Voice's chief theater critic, Michael Feingold, will again chair the Obie Awards committee. Joining him will be Voice critic Alexis Soloski and five guest judges: Critic Andy Propst, of AmericanTheaterWeb.com and TheaterMania (also a frequent Voice contributor), who will serve as secretary to the committee; Kristin Marting; Ralph B. Peña; and Martha Plimpton. Kristin Marting, who directs hybrid work, is a co-founder and Artistic Director of HERE Arts Center. Since its founding in 1993, HERE and its productions have received a total of 14 Obie Awards. Ralph B. Peña is a founding member and Artistic Director of Ma-Yi Theater Company. He received a 2003 Obie for his work on Ma-Yi's production of "The Romance of Magno Rubio." Martha Plimpton, a 3-time Tony Award nominee, received an OBIE Award in 2001 for her performance in "Hobson's Choice" (Atlantic Theater Company). She is currently filming a recurring role on HBO's forthcoming series "How To Make It In America."

Founded in 1955 by Voice cultural editor Jerry Tallmer, The Village Voice Obie Awards annually honor the best of Off-Broadway and Off-Off Broadway. Unlike most theater awards, the Obies do not publicize nominations or employ rigid categories in which a "Best" is selected. In the conviction that creativity is not competitive, the judges select outstanding artists and productions and may even invent new categories to reward artistic merit. Past winners have included well-known stars such as Dustin Hoffman, Meryl Streep, William Hurt, Morgan Freeman, Mos Def, Amy Irving, Kevin Kline, Nathan Lane, Olympia Dukakis, Robert Duvall, Denzel Washington, Kevin Bacon, Alec Baldwin, Kathy Bates, James Earl Jones, Joan Cusack and Harvey Fierstein, to name a few.

The presentation of the 2009-2010 Village Voice Obie Awards will be held on Monday, May 17, 2010 at the landmarked Webster Hall in Greenwich Village. Ticket information will be forthcoming.

About The Village Voice:
Founded by Dan Wolf, Ed Fancher, and Norman Mailer in October 1955, The Village Voice introduced free-form, high-spirited and passionate journalism into the public discourse. As the nation's first and largest alternative newsweekly, the Voice maintains the same tradition of no-holds-barred reporting and criticism it first embraced when it began publishing over fifty years ago. The recipient of three Pulitzer prizes, the National Press Foundation Award, and the George Polk Award, among others, the Voice has earned a reputation for its groundbreaking investigations of New York City politics, and as the premier expert on New York's cultural scene. Writing and reporting on local and national politics, with opinionated arts, culture, music, dance, film and theater reviews, daily web dispatches, comprehensive entertainment listings, and unrivaled classifieds, the Voice is the authoritative source on all that is New York.

The Village Voice has also created such celebrated events as the Obie Awards, Siren Music Festival, kNow Music Series, Choice Eats, as well as the most anticipated issues and guides of the year including the annual Pazz and Jop music poll, Best of NYC, and its Spring, Summer, and Fall Preview guides, the Voice is New York's most influential must-read alternative newspaper in print and online at www.villagevoice.com where the site averages 2 million unique users each month.

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