Nominations Open For Theatre Professionals Who Advance Opportunities For Women+ Playwrights Over 40

Honor Roll! HONORS is now accepting nominations for the Third Annual Marjorie Bicknell Honor Roll! HONORS.

Honor Roll! Honors recognizes those theater professionals who work to ensure that the plays of women+ playwrights over 40 have a full and significant life on the American stage and are represented fairly in the canon of theatrical works.

Honor Roll! will award Honors in five categories in 2024 for work accomplished between January 1, and December 31, 2023. This year's categories are:

Outstanding Producer: Recognizing a producer or artistic director who makes a special effort to include the work of women+ playwrights age 40 or older in their theater's season, or who has produced a Second Stage season of plays or readings by them.

Inclusionary Festival: Recognizing a conference, festival, or special event that features the work of women+ playwrights age 40 and older, or who makes a special effort to include their work in a festival or series of plays and readings.

Outstanding Publisher: Recognizing a publisher who produces anthologies of work by women+ playwrights age 40+, a magazine that features the work of these playwrights or regularly includes articles about the work that women+ playwrights in this age cohort are doing.

Individual Achievement: Recognizing an individual who does outstanding work in helping women+ playwrights age 40+ to get their work produced, published, or honored in a special way.

Legacy Award: Recognizing an individual or organization that has consistently advocated for women+ playwrights, especially those age 40 and older, over a period of five years or longer.

HONOR ROLL! is an advocacy and action group of women+ playwrights over forty - and women+ over 40 allies - whose goal is inclusion in theater. The Honor Roll mission statement states: "We are the generation excluded at the outset of our careers because of sexism, now overlooked because of ageism. We celebrate diversity in theater and work to eliminate age discrimination as it intersects with sexism and other biases including those based on race, gender identity, ethnicity, faith, socioeconomic status, disability, and sexual orientation in the American Theater and beyond." There are 1,850 members of Honor Roll.

This is the third annual Honor Roll! HONORS, a program initially initiated and run by Marjorie Bicknell, an Honor Roll Member and also a Dramatist Guild Regional Representative. Following her unexpected death in 2023, the program was named for her.

"Marjorie Bicknell was wildly passionate about Honor Roll HONORS, and was completely devoted to it. Now, the program will continue with her name added in her memory," said Olga Humphrey, member of the Honor Roll Executive Committee. Honor Roll Member Ann Timmons now guiding the program.

The deadline for nominations is July 15 2024. Honor Roll members and any theater professional may nominate another individual or group of individuals for Honor Roll! Honors by accessing a form at bit.ly/4bI1ho6. Or email your nomination with the requested information to HonorRollPlaywrights@gmail.com. Winners will be announced in August 2024.

Recipients of the Honor Roll HONORS in 2023 were: Individual Achievement Award, Plan-B Theatre, Jerry Rapier, Artistic Director and Cheryl Ann Cluff, Managing Director; Outstanding Producer, Thomas Coté, The Workshop Theatre; Outstanding Publisher, Debbie Lamedman, Smith & Kraus; Inclusionary Festival, The Writers Lab, Elizabeth Kaiden and Nitza Wilon, and Legacy Award, Julia Jordan, Lilly's co-creator.

Members of the Honor Roll Executive Committee are: Peppur Chambers, Cynthia L. Cooper, Cheryl Davis, Olga Humphrey, Jacqueline Reingold, Bayla Travis and Diana Yanez.

For more information about how to nominate someone for Honor Roll Honors, see https://www.honorrollplaywrights.org/honor-roll-honors.html.

For information about Honor Roll, see http://jd03.myonepager.com/

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