Winners of The 2020 Clive & Valerie Barnes Awards Announced

The Clive & Valerie Barnes Foundation has announced their Innovation Awards in Dance and Theatre. Unlike previous years, the Foundation chose to honor one winner in each category that demonstrated outstanding innovation during the past year. Each awardee will receive a $5,000 gift.

The Clive Barnes Dance Innovation Award is honoring Anthony Huxley for his work in Justin Peck's SOLO for Anthony Huxley

Anthony Huxley is a principal dancer with New York City Ballet. Born in Walnut Creek, California, he studied ballet at the Contra Costa Ballet School and the San Francisco Ballet School. He attended summer courses at the School of American Ballet, the official school of New York City Ballet, in 2002 and 2003, enrolling as a full-time student in 2003. In October 2006, Huxley was named an apprentice with New York City Ballet and joined the Company as a member of the corps de ballet in July 2007. He was promoted to soloist in July 2011 and to principal dancer in June 2015. Since joining NYCB, he has performed featured roles in numerous ballets by George Balanchine, Jerome Robbins, August Bournonville, William Forsythe, Peter Martins, Justin Peck, Alexei Ratmansky, and Christopher Wheeldon, among others. He has also originated featured roles in ballets by Mr. Martins, Matthew Neenan, Mr. Peck, Troy Schumacher, and Peter Walker. Mr. Huxley was featured in PBS's "Great Performances: NYCB in Paris" as the 3rd movement principal in George Balanchine's Symphony in C (2017). He was a 2006 recipient of the Mae L. Wien Award and also received the 2010-11 Janice Levin Award.

The Clive Barnes Theatre Innovation Award is honoring PigPen Theatre Company

PigPen Theatre Co. began creating their unique brand of theatre, music, and film as freshmen at the Carnegie Mellon School of Drama in 2007. They have since performed, produced, and licensed their original plays in New York City and all over the world - earning them critic's picks from The New York Times, Time Out New York, Chicago Tribune, Chicago Sun-Times, Boston Globe, and many more, ranking them in the top ten theatrical events of 2011, 2012, 2013, and 2016. They were the first group to win the NYC Fringe Festival's top honor for a play two years in a row (2010/11) and have gone on to win IRNE (2012, 2015) and Jeff Awards (2014) for their theatrical productions. In 2016, Sir Trevor Nunn invited PigPen to be a part of his first American acting company for a production of Shakespeare's "Pericles".

PigPen's debut album, "Bremen", was named #10 album of the year in The Huffington Post's 2012 Grammy preview sending PigPen on tour playing to sold-out crowds across the country. American Songwriter premiered their follow-up EP, "The Way I'm Running", in 2013 while the band was playing a series of concerts that became one of the most popular residencies of the past decade at the legendary Schuba's Tavern in Chicago. In 2015, PigPen released their sophomore album, "Whole Sun", performed at Mumford & Sons' return to the Gentlemen of the Road Festival, and made their feature film debut in Jonathan Demme's "Ricki and the Flash" starring Meryl Streep.

In 2018, PigPen announced that they are creating two stage musicals based on beloved novels: The Tale of Despereaux by Kate DiCamillo (in partnership with Universal Theatrical Group) and Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen (in collaboration with Rick Elice). The Tale of Despereaux world premiered at The Old Globe in the summer of 2019 and transferred to Berkeley Repertory Theatre to close out the year. In 2021, they will premiere their first interactive theatrical experience, "The Phantom Folktales", for Richard Branson's groundbreaking cruise line, Virgin Voyages.

To post a comment, you must register and login.