Actors Kelley Curran and Thomas Jay Ryan Honored with 2015 Joe A. Callaway Award

Kelley Curran and Thomas Jay Ryan have been selected to receive the 2015 Joe A. Callaway Award presented by the Actors Equity Foundation. The award, honoring the best performance in a professional production of a classic play (one written prior to 1920) in the New York metropolitan area, will be presented at Actors' Equity Association's Eastern Regional Membership Meeting at 2 pm on Friday, January 8, 2016 at the Equity offices, 165 West 46th Street in New York. The announcement was made by Arne Gundersen, President of the Foundation, and Joan Glazer, Managing Director.

Kelley Curran was recognized for her performance as Hippolita in Red Bull Theater's production of John Ford's 'Tis Pity She's a Whore. Curran has appeared on regional stages throughout the country, including in Henry IV, Parts 1 and 2 at the Shakespeare Theatre Company in Washington, DC; Venus in Fur at the Gulfshore Playhouse in Naples, Florida; Anna Karenina at the Portland Center Stage, Portland, OR; and Red Velvet and The Comedy of Errors at Shakespeare & Company in Lenox, MA, among others. She received her BA in Theatre from Fordham University.

Thomas Jay Ryan was cited for his performance as Dr. Shpigelsky in the Classic Stage Company production of Ivan Turgenev's A Month in the Country. He followed up this production with an appearance in 10 out of 12 at Soho Rep and the Keen Company's Travels With My Aunt, an adaptation of the Graham Greene novel in which he played dual roles. Next up on stage is a revival of Arthur Miller's The Crucible, due on Broadway in April, 2016. Ryan, who attended Carnegie Mellon University, also played pioneering gay activist Harry Hay in the initial production of The Temperamentals in 2009 and has worked in regional theatres, including The Guthrie in Minneapolis and Yale Repertory Theatre in New Haven.

Established by Equity member Joe A. Callaway in 1989, the award includes a $1,000 check plus a commemorative engraved plaque for each recipient.

The Judges for the Callaway Award are: Joe Dziemianowicz, Daily News; Adam Feldman, Time Out New York; Susan Haskins, Theater Talk; Harry Haun, Playbill; and David Rosenberg, The Hour Newspapers.

Previous recipients of the Callaway Award include Kate Burton, Byron Jennings, Frank Langella, Laura Linney, Lily Rabe, Liev Schreiber and, in 2014, Suzanne Bertish and Paxton Whitehead.

The Actors Equity Foundation, a philanthropic and humanitarian nonprofit organization, was created in 1962 to aid and assist members of the acting profession and to promote the theatre arts. It is separate from Actors' Equity Association and is funded by estate bequests and individual donations.

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