Theater News

Toni Morrison, Jessye Norman, Susan Stroman Among Brooklyn Museum’s First Awards Honorees

Susan Stroman
(© Tristan Fuge)
Susan Stroman
(© Tristan Fuge)

Toni Morrison, Jessye Norman and Susan Stroman will be among the honorees at the Brooklyn Museum’s First Awards, to be presented on April 18, according to a report in The New York Times. The prizes, which are being bestowed on the fifth anniversary of the Brooklyn Museum’s Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art, will recognize 15 women who were first in their fields.

Morrison wrote the libretto for the opera Margaret Garner, and her novel The Bluest Eye has served as the basis for a popular play by Lydia Diamond. Norman has performed all over the world in some of opera’s most recognizable roles. Stroman won Tony Awards for her direction and choreography of The Producers and for her choreography of Contact, Show Boat, and Crazy for You.

Among the other First Award honorees are Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, newswoman Connie Chung, Faye Wattleton, a former president of Planned Parenthood; and Chief Wilma Pearl Mankiller, the first female chief of the Cherokee Nation.

Click here for more information about the Brooklyn Museum and the First Awards.