Theater News

Broadway Playwright Larry Kramer to Receive Isabelle Stevenson Award at 2013 Tonys

The Normal Heart scribe will be recognized for his humanitarian and charitable work as cofounder of the Gay Men’s Health Crisis.

New York City

Larry Kramer
Larry Kramer
(© David Gordon)

Playwright/AIDS activist Larry Kramer will receive the 2013 Isabelle Stevenson Award at the 2013 Tonys, held Sunday, June 9 at Radio City Music Hall. The honor recognizes an individual from the theater community who has “made a substantial contribution of volunteered time and effort on behalf of one or more humanitarian, social service, or charitable organizations, regardless of whether such organizations relate to the theater.”

Kramer, who is perhaps best known for his landmark drama, The Normal Heart, is to be recognized for his work as cofounder of the Gay Men’s Health Crisis, the world’s first HIV/AIDS service organization, and as the founder of ACT UP, the international network of activists responsible for the development and release of many HIV and AIDS treatments.

The founding of the Gay Men’s Health Crisis is documented in The Normal Heart, which won a 2011 Tony Award for Best Revival of a Play, and will soon be adapted as a film for HBO, directed by Ryan Murphy and starring Mark Ruffalo and Julia Roberts. Kramer received an Academy Award nomination for his film Women in Love, and is also the author of the plays The Destiny of Me, A Minor Dark Age, Sissies’ Scrapbook, the nonfiction works The Tragedy of Today’s Gays and Reports from the holocaust: the making of an AIDS activist, as well as the fiction works Faggots, and the forthcoming The American People.