Rachel Lampert Honored for Lifetime Achievement at the 2017 SALT Awards

Kitchen Theatre Company is thrilled to announce that Artistic Director Emerita Rachel Lampert was honored with the Syracuse Area Live Theater (SALT) Lifetime Achievement Award at 2017 Ceremony, held November 5th at Syracuse Stage. The SALT Award program recognizes exemplary and outstanding performances in Professional and Non-Professional theater in Central New York.

The award was introduced by Syracuse New Times theater critic Jim MacKillop, who described Lampert's visionary leadership of the Kitchen Theatre Company, which he refers to as "Central New York's only Off-Broadway Theatre." "Every play at the Kitchen is always more affecting because of the theatre's intimacy and excellence," he said, and he attributed that to Lampert's dynamic leadership of the organization.

"It was a wonderful surprise to be recognized with the SALT Lifetime Achievement Award. I am honored to have received it and thrilled that Kitchen Theatre Company during my tenure was noted for its contribution to the City of Ithaca, Tompkins County and Central New York," says Lampert. "I had a extraordinarily fulfilling twenty years of producing plays, supporting other artists and working with extremely talented people. Now I can take a little breather and see what my Act Three will be."

Rachel Lampert served as Artistic Director of Kitchen Theatre Company for twenty seasons. Under her leadership, the Kitchen emerged artistically, becoming a center for new and outside-the-box plays, a champion of women directors, and the producer of many works by artists of color. She was central to the organization and implementation of Kitchen Theatre Company's first-ever capital campaign that resulted in the acquisition of a permanent home for the theater, and in her final season at the Kitchen was the inspiration for the "Burn the Mortgage" Campaign that successfully raised funds to pay off the theatre's mortgage debt. Lampert is a playwright, director and choreographer. Her work at the Kitchen included: Director:Hand to God, Birds of East Africa, Sex With Strangers, Peter and the Starcatcher (with Sara Lampert Hoover), Lonely Planet, Thin Walls, Venus in Fur, Frankie & Johnny in the Clair de Lune, Opus, Broke-ology, Red Light Winter, The Mystery of Irma Vep, Mary's Wedding, Gutenberg! The Musical!, The Glass Menagerie, The Price, Master Class, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, Swimming in the Shallows among many others. Playwright: Main Stage Musicals Book & Lyrics for Waiting for Spring, Bed No Breakfast, Comfort Food, Tony & the Soprano, The Angle of the Sun and Precious Nonsense. Main Stage Movement Pieces: In the Company of Dancers and Summers at Rock's Edge.Main Stage Non-musical plays: Count Me In; And, lately...; Losing Myself; The Trial; The Book Club; Frankenstein and The Soup Comes Last.Family Fare: I Have a Song to Sing O!, Scoot, Sizzle & Slide, The Mozart Mystery, The Odyssey parts 1 & 2, A December Suite, and A Christmas Carol, among others.

Directing and theatrical choreography credits outside Ithaca has included productions at Cal Rep, Arkansas Rep, Portland Stage Company, New York's Public Theatre, Mill Mountain Theatre and Hawaii Opera Theatre. Her concert dance works have been in the repertories of numerous dance companies in the U.S. and abroad. Her trip to China in 1997 to Stage West Side Story resulted in her writing The Soup Comes Last, produced off-Broadway at 59E59 Theaters in Fall 2004. The Angle of the Sun (written by Lampert & Pressgrove) was selected by the New York Musical Theatre Festival to be presented in NYC in September 2007.

Since retirement from the Kitchen, Lampert has mounted a production of her musical Precious Nonsense at Auburn Public Theater and is continuing to develop works for Fitz&Startz Productions, a theatre company she founded that produces original works for young audiences. Lampert is a 4-time recipient of NEA Choreography Fellowships and a CAP Individual Artist Grant. She received a SALT Award for Best Actress in 2004. She attended Mount Holyoke College and has a BFA and MFA from NYU Tisch School of the Arts.

Also recognized at the SALT Awards this year was Scenic and Lighting Designer Tyler M. Perry, the Non-Performing Person of the Year at Kitchen Theatre Company. Three Kitchen Theatre Company actors received SALT Award nominations: Karl Gregory (lead actor in a play), Montana Lampert Hoover (supporting actress in a play), and Michael Patrick Trimm (supporting actor in a play), all for Hand to God, the opening play of the Kitchen's 2016-2017 Season.

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