2024 New York Independent Theater Honorary Award Recipients Announced!

The League of Independent Theater has announced the 2024 New York Independent Theater Award Recipients.

After a complete reimagining of the award process and a tripling of engagement over previous years, a committee of 35 community members evaluated over a hundred nominations to come to a consensus around the 6 Honorary Award Recipients. These Honorees exhibit outstanding leadership, service, artistry and commitment to the indie and off-off broadway theatrical landscape.

The 2024 New York Independent Theater Honorary Award Recipients:

Everett Quinton Award - Kevin R. Free

Ellen Stewart Award - The Muse Project

Caffe Cino Award - Houses on the Moon Theater Company

Outstanding Stage Manager Award - Berit Johnson

Indie Theatre Champion Award - Rev. Micah Bucey

Artistic Achievement Award - Theresa Linnihan

The New York Independent Theater Awards celebrate the impact of NYC's diverse and groundbreaking indie theater artists. The NYIT Honorary Awards Ceremony serves as an annual Homecoming for Indie Theater Artists working across all five boroughs of New York City, providing an opportunity for cross-pollination, inspiration and community.

"While we never articulate a theme or an agenda for the Honorees in any given year," says Aimee Todoroff, Managing Director of the League of Independent Theater, "we quickly noticed a common passion for telling stories that are vital, immediate, and often overlooked. Each of these Honorees is dedicated to making revolutionary storytelling accessible to audiences that need to see themselves reflected in the art."

A celebration of the award recipients will be held on September 9th, 2024, at the indie theater venue Brooklyn Art Haus! Details, including a lineup of performers, will be forthcoming.

2024 New York Independent Theater Honorary Award Recipients

The Everett Quinton Award, named in honor of the legendary theater maker and leader of the Ridiculous Theatrical Company Everett Quinton, will be presented to Kevin R. Free for his fierce commitment to the radical spirit of The Ridiculous. This is the inaugural Everett Quinton Award, and the NYIT Honorary Award Committee is thrilled to acknowledge Kevin's expansive contributions to indie/off-off broadway theater and to celebrate his bright future and positive impact on others. Kevin is a writer/performer/director whose work has been showcased and developed in many places, including the Moth Radio Hour, The Fire This Time Festival, The New Black Fest, The Blackboard Reading Series, the Estrogenius Festival, Drunken! Careening! Writers!; the New York International Fringe Festival, Portland Stage Company, Marin Theatre Company, UNLV, Flux Theatre Ensemble, and most recently, The Historic Apollo Theatre, as a member of the New Works Lab Cohort. In 2023, he was recognized for his lifetime of work as an audiobook narrator when AudioFile Magazine awarded him with the Golden Voice award. In 2025, he will direct the world premiere of Donnetta Lavinia Grays' play Kudzu Calling at Alabama Shakespeare Festival. He is now the artistic director of Mile Square Theatre in Hoboken, NJ, but lives on the other side of the world on City Island, NY, with his husband and three cats.

Kevin's philosophy is a generous and loving "Make Good Shit and Take Care of Each Other While Doing It." He adds "I love producing the work of living playwrights, and I love amplifying all voices: what is the context of this show? How can we illuminate the story of this play to elucidate all that is happening in the world outside the play? And I love asking playwrights - who can answer me - why this play? Why now? And then answering the question with our production... We make things on a shoestring and we come together to make it happen - BECAUSE WE HAVE TO. It's all hands on deck and it provides everyone involved ACCESS to the work; ACCESS to like-minded individuals; and in my case, ACCESS to professional opportunities and growth!... I want [audiences] to say, "That was good. Good for me and good for the world.""

The Ellen Stewart Award, named in honor of LaMaMa's founder Ellen Stewart, is presented to an individual or organization demonstrating a significant contribution to the Independent/ Off-Off-Broadway community through support and leadership. This year's award recognizes The Muse Project. The Muse Project is an experimental initiative that centers women theater actors. The initiative shifts the theater paradigm through the empowerment of women stage actors as creators, collaborators, and content generators. Muses have included an array of accomplished and burgeoning actresses, including the late Lynn Cohen, Florencia Lozano, Déa Julien, Vanessa Aspillaga, Kyra Miller, Jessica Frances Dukes, Jocelyn Kuritsky (Artistic Director), and more. Partnerships with various celebrated New York theater companies to incubate the work have included New Georges, The New Group, Abingdon Theatre Company, The Tank, The Flea Theater, The PIT, Theaterlab, & Torn Page. The Project has a kind of nimble, shape-shifting nomadic spirit that can affect many - artists and audiences alike, in small and large(er) settings, in person and online. The organization also facilitates discussion and highlights the varied and interesting careers of many women stage actors. More: www.themuseprojectnyc.com.

"We live in a complex world, and we need complex art," says the Muse Project Founder and Artistic Director Jocelyn Kuritsky. "I want people to feel that they are not alone or lonely." She adds "Indie work is the most freeing, and where I feel the most of service... Indie/OOB is for big risks - the biggest."

The Caffe Cino Award, named in honor of the legendary theater space created by Joe Cino, is presented to an Independent/Off-Off-Broadway theater company that consistently produces outstanding work that speaks to its community. This year's recipient, Houses on the Moon Theater Company, led by Artistic Director Emily Joy Weiner, is a shining example of this. Founded in 2001, Houses on the Moon is a home for untold stories. "There was a calling for new work, stories, and voices that were not often or ever heard," says Emily Joy Weiner. " This was the general motivation for the creation of Houses on the Moon." Through creative workshops, original performances, post-show conversations, and accessible ticketing, Houses on the Moon collaborates with communities to amplify unheard voices, offer support, and ultimately foster a more empathetic world. Original plays begin with relationship building, collaboration, and partnership with grassroots community organizations to identify an urgent social need; a vital untold story that must be heard. The HOTM creation process includes extensive research, first-person storytelling workshops, and interviews: whether the work depicts LGBTQ+ asylum seekers, undocumented youth, individuals impacted by gun violence or families grappling with mass incarceration, HOTM creates innovative, bold plays that are inclusive, collaborative, and authentically reflective of the communities they serve. HOTM's work has been produced internationally and in 17 US states, as well as Off-Broadway at New York Theater Workshop, Lucille Lortel, Theatre Row Theatres, 59E59 St. Theatres, Dixon Place and more. Following the plays' Off-Broadway premieres, HOTM brings the work to schools, hospitals, national festivals and conferences, and other non-traditional spaces to promote education, advocacy, and dialogue.

The Outstanding Stage Manager Award honors the living link between artistic conception/inspiration and practical implementation - stage managers. Our 2024 Outstanding Stage Manager is Berit Johnson. Berit exemplifies the classic traits of a good stage manager and adds their own style that meshes so well with the Indie Theater style. Which isn't surprising, since Berit has been working in Indie Theater in NYC since 1996 as a stage manager and prop designer. They are a member of Untitled Theater Company #61, and co-director of Gemini CollisionWorks with their partner, Ian W. Hill. They are also the showrunner and head writer for GCW's sci-fi audio sitcom, Life with Althaar, which is available wherever podcasts are streamed.

Edward Einhorn, Artistic Director of Untitled Theater Company No. 61, says "Berit is doing indie theater because that is where their heart and passion is. Berit is more than a great stage manager, though they are that. Berit is a collaborator, in every sense of the word."

The Indie Theater Champion Award is given to an individual, group, or business that advanced the Indie theater community through service and positive social justice impact. This year's Champion is Rev. Micah Bucey for continuous support of the bodies and spirits of New York City's independent theater artists. Micah is a firebrand faith leader, flaming fairy, and fawning fan, who serves as Senior Minister at Judson Memorial Church in Greenwich Village, a community committed to curiously seeking the intersections between expansive spirituality, radical social justice, and uncensored creative expression.

"It's an honor to be a part of this collective work," Rev. Bucey says, "and I consider this award to be a loud invitation to keep expanding my understanding of what's possible, to keep embodying my deep belief that a little space, a little story, and a little group of people can always mightily trouble the deadly waters of complacency, queer the exhausting world around us, and breathe breath into our exhausted existence, inspiring us all to keep becoming something far more miraculous than we fear we are."

The Artistic Achievement Award is presented to artists who have made a significant artistic contribution to the Off-Off-Broadway community. This year, the NYIT Honorary Awards recognizes Theresa Linnihan. A child of the prairie, Theresa apprenticed with The Minneapolis Children's Theater. In 1977 she moved east to Newburyport, MA where she founded Theater in the Open with a residency granted her at Maudslay State Park. TITO, a company of all ages, created fresh adaptations of myths and fairy tales which toured New England and Europe and built alliances with Bread and Puppet and The Puppeteers Cooperative of Boston. In these partnerships puppetry was woven into her work. In 1996 Theresa moved to NYC. Her stubborn desire to work with a company of players led her to The Czech-Slovak American Marionette Theater where she has served as performer, designer and associate director for nearly 30 years, touring to Korea, Pakistan, Turkey and The Czech Republic. Meanwhile, continuing as a player and producer for The Puppet Co-op, Theresa was part of Lincoln Center Out of Doors, an annual Rite of Spring in Prospect Park and at The Old Stone House in Brooklyn.

In 2004 the Cooperative established The New York Puppet Library, loaning free puppets to a range of creative, community visions. The library also welcomed emerging puppeteers, playwrights and musicians to its small but fascinating performance space in the Civil War monument at Grand Army Plaza. Theresa has taught puppetry and improvisation in schools throughout NYC combining process with performance in countless pageants and parades. She's been invited to theater / puppet workshops in Paris, Geneva and (full circle) Minneapolis, where she's worked with Heart of the Beast Puppet and Mask Theater and BareBones Puppets.

"I have a fascination with adapting and staging fairy tales and mythology combined with the pressing issues of our times," says Theresa Linnihan. "To me, theater is an example of the world at peace. Peace is dynamic, adaptable, a struggle of personalities and ideas with the pressure of an opening night where compromise, discoveries, hard work and love are shared."

We’d like to also highlight our finalists this year, who illustrate just how much talent there is in New York’s Indie theater scene. For the Caffe Cino award: Rising Sun Performance Company, and The Anthropologists. For the Everett Quinton award: Duncan Pflaster, Gian Marco Lo Forte, and Azure D. Osbourn-Lee. For the Ellen Stewart award: Pioneers Go East Collective, and EPIC Players. For the Artistic Achievement award: Susane Lee of Hudson Classical Theater Company, and Catherine Filloux. For Outstanding Stage Management: Allison Raines and Madeleine Blossom. For the Indie Theater Champion award: Ashley Garrett, and Gi60 International One Minute Theatre Festival.

The League of Independent Theater will be able to share the work of these outstanding folks, and that we hope people will help us highlight other inspirational people when we open submissions for next year's New York Independent Theater Honorary Awards in January 2025.

Additional Company Information

The League of Independent Theater advances public policy for the common good of indie theater artists to create a sustainable, equitable arts landscape that uplifts all New Yorkers.

The New York Independent Theater Awards is a not-for-profit organization recognizing the great work of New York City's Off-Off-Broadway/Independent theater artists, honoring its artistic heritage, and providing a meeting ground for this extensive and richly varied community. The New York Independent Theater Awards advocate for OOB/Indie theater and recognize the unique and essential role it plays in contributing to NYC, American and global theatrical cultures.

 

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