Village Voice Obies To Be Webcast Live 5/19

 An elite downtown New York City theater event, heretofore restricted to an invitation-only audience, will become open to the world for the first time ever.  The Village Voice OBIE Awards will be webcast live from Webster Hall on Monday, May 19, 2008 at 8pm by logging on to www.villagevoice.com/obies or www.iclips.net.

After winning an OBIE Award, many shows subsequently tour the world with new productions that are produced from Jersey to Johannesburg.  Over the years, many plays translate from off-Broadway to Broadway to television and film. This first ever webcast of the 53rd annual Village Voice OBIE Awards is a rare chance to see some of your favorite performers, playwrights, directors and designers appearing as themselves.   

The Village Voice OBIEs are the freewheeling wild child of New York theater's awards world established in 1955 by then Village Voice theater editor Jerry Tallmer. The winners are chosen by a committee of critics and working theater artists, currently chaired by the Voice's chief theater critic, Michael Feingold. Outside of annual awards for Lifetime Achievement and for Best New American Play, the OBIEs have no fixed categories and no listed nominations. Artists receive OBIEs on their own merit and not in competition with others. The OBIE awards cover an astounding artistic range. Past recipients have included everyone from now-established superstars like Meryl Streep, Dustin Hoffman, Al Pacino, and Denzel Washington to incredibly talented people best known inside the special world of New York's Off-Broadway theater.
 
Since the mid-1980s, The Village Voice has provided $10,000 in grant money, which the judges award each year to deserving theater groups and individuals. In Addition, $1,000 will be awarded for the Best New American Play or an emerging playwright, and the $2,000 Ross Wetzsteon Award which honors an institution that fosters the development of new theatrical voices.   

The Village Voice OBIEs will be hosted by Elizabeth Marvel & Bill Camp and presented by Neil Patrick Harris, Priscilla Lopez, S. Epatha Merkerson, Marisa Tomei, Bradley Whitford and Julie White. More BIG names will be announced.  

PASSING STRANGE, the acclaimed rock musical that moved from the Public Theater to become Broadway's hottest new show will perform two songs, 'We Just had Sex' and the 'Welcome to Amsterdam,' from the super hot musical at the OBIE Awards Ceremony – seen only on www.villagevoice.com or www.iclips.net

This year, the Village Voice OBIEs were chaired by the Voice's chief theater critic Michael Feingold and his committee of judges Voice critic Alexis Soloski; Variety critic Mark Blankenship; Bloomberg News editor and critic Jeremy Gerard; playwright-director Robert O'Hara (2007 OBIE winner for In the Continuum); set designer Neil Patel (twice an OBIE winner for sustained excellence of design); and Time Out New York / New York Sun critic Helen Shaw.