SHUFFLE ALONG Director George C. Wolfe to be Honored at Eugene O'Neill Theater Center's 2016 Gala

The Eugene O'Neill Theater Center has announced that award-winning stage and film director, playwright, and actor George C. Wolfe will receive the 16th Monte Cristo Award. A gala dinner will be held in his honor at The Edison Ballroom (New York) on May 9, followed by a special program hosted by O'Neill Executive Director Preston Whiteway.

The O'Neill annually bestows its Monte Cristo Award on a prominent theater artist whose lifetime work has had an extraordinary impact on American theater. The gala event supports the Center's commitment to developing new work and new artists for the stage.

Says Whiteway, "George stands alone as a director, author, and actor in his impressive and wide-ranging career, covering both stage and screen. With his range and breadth in the theater, he is a very deserving Monte Cristo Award recipient. It is an honor to celebrate his artistry, unique talents, and his enormous impact on our field."

Wolfe burst onto the national scene in 1986 with his play, The Colored Museum, staged at the Public Theater. In 1992, he made his Broadway writing and directing debut with Jelly's Last Jam, a musical tribute to famed jazz pianist-composer Jelly Roll Morton. The production received 11 Tony nominations and won the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Book of a Musical. In 1993, Wolfe received a Tony Award for his direction of Tony Kushner's landmark Angels in America: Millennium Approaches. Wolfe was also Tony-nominated for his direction of Angels In America: Perestroika, which opened in 1994.

He created the 1996 Tony Award-winning Bring in da' Noise, Bring in da' Funk, starring and choreographed by Savion Glover, for which he won a Tony Award for direction. He directed the 2002 Tony Award-winning production of Elaine Stritch At Liberty, and the Tony Award-winning 2011 Broadway production of Larry Kramer's The Normal Heart.

His credits also include the Tony-nominated stage productions of The Wild Party with composer, librettist and lyricist Michael John LaChiusa; Kushner and Janine Tesori's Caroline, or Change; Suzan-Lori Parks' Pulitzer Prize-winning play Topdog/Underdog and Nora Ephron's Lucky Guy, starring Tom Hanks. He directed Bertolt Brecht's Mother Courage and Her Children at the Delacorte Theatre in Central Park, starring O'Neill Center veterans Meryl Streep and Kevin Kline. Wolfe also wrote and directed important works Spunk, and Paradise. He was inducted into the American Theater Hall of Fame in 2013.

He wrote the book and will direct a revival of Shuffle Along on Broadway this spring, starring Audra McDonald, Brian Stokes Mitchell, Billy Porter, Brandon Victor Dixon and Joshua Henry, and choreographed by Mr. Glover. The production premieres at The Music Box on April 28.

On screen, Wolfe has directed, produced, and acted in numerous films including HBO's Lackawanna Blues (director, 2006), Nights in Rodanthe (director, 2013), Garden State (actor, 2008), and The Devil Wears Prada (actor, 2008).

Tickets are available at www.theoneill.org/montecristoaward. For sponsorship opportunities or additional information about the event, call 860-443-5378 x285, or email events@theoneill.org.