Obie Awards: Jessica Hecht & Jeremy Shamos to host
Jessica Hecht and Jeremy Shamos, who are currently starring together in the Broadway production of 'The Assembled Parties' by Obie-winning playwright Richard Greenberg, will host the 58th Annual OBIE awards will take place on 20 May 2013 at Webster Hall in the East Village.
The 2013 Obie Award presenters will include: Bobby Cannavale, Maggie Grace, Judith Light, Aasif Mandvi, Krysta Rodriguez, Duncan Sheik and Courtney B. Vance.
The Village Voice's chief theater critic, two-time Pulitzer Prize finalist Michael Feingold has chaired the panel of judges, from criticism and the theatrical profession, who will select this year's award winners and grant recipients. His colleagues on the panel include Alexis Soloski, Erin Courtney, Mia Katigbak, Tom Sellar and Leigh Silverman.
The Village Voice Obie Awards panel of judges has selected two actresses as joint recipients of this year's Obie Award for Lifetime Achievement.
Obie Chairman, Michael Feingold said,
Like everyone else associated with the Obies, I am thrilled and delighted at the thought of honoring these two magnificent actresses together in this way. We are all longtime admirers of their work, not only Off-Broadway, but on Broadway and in film and television as well. Those of us on the judges' panel who have had the honor of working with one or both of these splendid artists, however briefly, did not need to contemplate the long resumes and lists of awards that each of them has accumulated in order to know how greatly they have enhanced our theatrical lives.Both Sternhagen and s. Smith have previously received Obie Awards for individual performances, along with numerous other awards and honors; both are widely known and cherished members of New York's theater community. Together their joint careers represent some 120 years of creative contribution to our national culture. Each, this year, took on a major role in a brand-new play Off-Broadway, Smith in Sam Shepard's 'Heartless' (Pershing Square Signature Center) and Sternhagen in Liz Flahive's 'The Madrid' (Manhattan Theatre Club).
Meryl Streep will present the Lifetime Achievement Obies to Lois Smith and Frances Sternhagen. Streep's numerous Off-Broadway credits include her Obie Award-winning 1981 performance in the Public Theater production of Alice in Concert.
For the past 58 years, the Village Voice Obie Awards, founded by Jerry Tallmer in 1956, have honored the best of Off Broadway and Off-Off Broadway. Structured with informal categories that change annually, the Village Voice Obie Awards recognize persons and productions of excellence. Unlike most theater awards, the Village Voice Obie Awards list no nominations publicly. In the conviction that creativity is not competitive, the judges may give several Obies in each category, and may even invent new categories to reward exceptional artistic merit.
Past Obie Award winners include Al Pacino, Meryl Streep, Morgan Freeman, Denzel Washington, Felicity Huffman, Viola Davis, Kevin Kline, Nathan Lane, Tony Kushner, Kathy Bates, James Earl Jones, Edward Norton, and Sigourney Weaver, to name a few.
Jessica HechtJeremy ShamosOriginally published on