Tony winner Phylicia Rashad will soon have another award to add to her mantle. A press release has announced that the “Empire” actress will be presented with the Lifetime Achievement Award at this year’s Theatre Women Awards. Hosted by the League of Professional Theatre Women (LPTW), the awards are “dedicated to promoting the visibility of the theatrical work of female-identifying artists and their contributions to the field, across all disciplines.”
Rashad won a Tony in 2004 for her performance as Lena Younger in a revival of Lorraine Hansberry’s “A Raisin in the Sun.” She received another Tony nod in 2005 for her role in “Gem of the Ocean.” Rashad’s other stage credits include “August: Osage County,” “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof,” “Into the Woods,” “Dreamgirls,” and “The Wiz.” She was honored by the Steppenwolf Theatre Company last year. Probably best known as “The Cosby Show’s” matriarch, Clair Huxtable, Rashad has recently appeared onscreen in projects such as “Creed,” “For Colored Girls,” “Tour de Pharmacy,” and Lifetime’s remake of “Steel Magnolias.”
Receiving this year’s LPTW Special Award is drama critic Linda Winer. She is being honored for her contributions to the League as well as the field of journalism. Cricket S. Myers’ work in sound design will be celebrated with the Ruth Morley Design Award. The Lee Reynolds Award, which recognizes women who have “helped to illuminate the possibilities for social, cultural, or political change,” will go to playwright Rohina Malik (“The Mecca Tales”). Director Adrienne Campbell-Holt (“What We’re Up Against”) will take home the Lucille Lortel Visionary Award, an annual prize and grant for “an aspiring woman … who exemplifies great creative promise and deserves recognition and encouragement.” The Lortel grant will be bestowed to Colt Coeur, where Campbell-Holt serves as Artistic Director.
The 2018 Theatre Women Awards will be held March 16 at The TimesCenter in New York City. Go to the LPTW’s website to buy tickets or find out more.
The award winners’ bios are below, courtesy of the League of Theatre Women.
Phylicia Rashad (Lifetime Achievement Award) Broadway: August: Osage County, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Cymbeline (Lincoln Center Theater), August Wilson’s Gem of the Ocean(Tony nomination), A Raisin in the Sun (Tony and Drama Desk Awards), Into the Woods, Dreamgirls, The Wiz. Off-Broadway: A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Sunday in the Park with George, Head of Passes (Lucille Lortel Award), The Story, Helen, Everybody’s Ruby, Blue, The House of Bernarda Alba. Regional: Every Tongue Confess, Blues for an Alabama Sky, Medea. Film: Creed, Good Deeds, For Colored Girls, Frankie and Alice, Just Wright, Once Upon a Time When We Were Colored, Loving Jezebel, The Visit. Television: Empire, Jean Claude Van Johnson, A Raisin in the Sun (NAACP Image Award, Emmy and SAG nominations), The Old Settler, Free of Eden, Cosby, The Cosby Show. As a director: Ma Rainey’sBlack Bottom and Joe Turner’s Come and Gone at the Mark Taper Forum, Paul Oakley Stovall’s Immediate Family at the Taper and Goodman Theatre, Fences at the Long Wharf Theatre and McCarter Theatre, A Raisin in the Sun at Ebony Repertory Theatre, Kirk Douglas Theatre, and Westport Country Playhouse, Gem of the Ocean at Seattle Repertory Theatre, and Four Little Girls at the Kennedy Center.
Linda Winer (LPTW Special Award) was Chief Theatre Critic for Newsday from 1987–2017. She has taught critical writing at Columbia University’s School of the Arts since 1992 and hosted the LPTW’s “Women in Theatre” series on CUNY-TV from 2002 through 2007. She was Chief Theatre and Dance Critic for the Chicago Tribune from 1969–1980, a critic for the New York Daily News from 1980–1982 and USA Today from 1982–1987. Her criticism has won two first prizes from the American Society of Features Editors, two New York Newswomen’s Club Front Page Awards and the New York Newspaper Guild’s Page One Award. She teaches frequently at the Eugene O’Neill Center, has judged the Pulitzer Prize for Drama nine times, five times as panel chair. She received the Distinguished Alumna Award from Northeastern Illinois University in 2013.
Cricket S. Myers (Ruth Morley Award) is a Los Angeles based Sound Designer. In 2011, she received a Drama Desk Award and a Tony Nomination for her design of Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo. Cricket has been nominated for 20 Ovation Awards between 2007 and 2016. The nominations include Bent (director Moises Kaufman), Endgame (director Alan Mandel), and Play Dead (director Teller). Cricket has been named Sound Designer of the Year multiple times by StageSceneLA, and won the LADCC Kinetic Award for Outstanding Achievement in Theatrical Design in 2015. Cricket was a finalist for the 2005 TCG/NEA Career Development Grant, and in 2003 won the USITT Young Designers Clear-Com Award for Sound Design. Cricket serves on the Ovation Rules Committee, serves as a Founding Board Member and West Coast Rep of the Theatrical Sound Designers and Composers Association, and was elected to the Western Board of United Scenic Artists Local 829 in 2017. Cricket received her MFA in Sound Design from California Institute of the Arts in 2003, and was named a “Young Designer to Watch” in Live Design Magazine’s April 2007 Issue, and was recognized as “An Artist To Watch” by LA Stage Magazine in September of 2007.
Adrienne Campbell-Holt (Lucille Lortel Visionary Award) is a director and the Founding Artistic Director of Colt Coeur, a Brooklyn-based theatre company. Most recent: What We’re Up Against by Theresa Rebeck (WP Theater). Upcoming: The Big and the Small by Amelia Roper (Colt Coeur/NTYW Next Door) and Afterwords, a new musical by Zoe Sarnak and Emily Kaczmarek (Seattle). Recent world premieres: Downstairs by Theresa Rebeck starring Tyne Daly and Tim Daly (Dorset Theater Festival), Empathitrax by Ana Nogueira (Colt Coeur), Cal in Camo by William Francis Hoffman (co-pro Rattlestick & Colt Coeur), a workshop production of Kings by Sarah Burgess starring Larry Pine and Quincy Tyler Bernstine (WP Theater, NYC), One Child Born (Oberon at American Repertory Theater), How to Live on Earth by MJ Kaufman (Colt Coeur), Chiara Atik’s 52nd to Bowery (EST), Dry Land by Ruby Rae Spiegel (Colt Coeur), Greg Moss’ REUNION (South Coast Rep), Everything is Ours by Nikole Beckwith (Colt Coeur), Recall by Eliza Clark (Colt Coeur), Fish Eye (Colt Coeur), and Seven Minutes in Heaven by Steven Levenson (Colt Coeur).
Rohina Malik (Lee Reynolds Award) is a Chicago based critically acclaimed playwright and solo performance artist. She was born and raised in London, England, of South Asian heritage. Her one-woman play Unveiled had its world premiere at the 16th Street Theater, where it received critical acclaim and has been presented at venues all over the country. Rohina’s second play The Mecca Tales was produced by Chicago Dramatists in 2015 and nominated for a Joseph Jefferson Award for Best New Work. Recently, Voyage Theater Company and Cross- roads Theater Company partnered to bring The Mecca Tales to the east coast (Sheen Center) and Edison NJ, directed by Kareem Fahmy. Her new play,Yasmina’s Necklace, had its world premiere at the 16th Street Theater in 2016 and was nominated for a Jeff Award for Best New Work, and was recently remounted at The Goodman Theatre. Malik’s plays have been produced at the Goodman Theatre, 16th Street Theater, Voyage Theater Company, Crossroads Theater, Next Theater, Brava Theater, Victory Gardens Theater, Silk Road Rising, Theater Project Baltimore and Mustard Seed Theater. She is a Resident Playwright at Chicago Dramatists, an Artistic Associate at the 16th Street Theater and Voyage Theater Company. Unveiled was recently presented at two South African Theater festivals: The Grahamstown Arts Festival and the 969 Festival in Johannesburg, produced by Voyage Theater Company. Rohina is a proud member of the Dramatists Guild of America.
