Lloyd Richards to Receive Gish Prize

Lloyd Richards, a Tony Award-winning director
and Yale University professor emeritus, will be presented with this year’s Dorothy and Lillian Gish Prize in a ceremony at The Hudson Theatre in Manhattan on Wednesday, October 30 at 6:30pm

The award goes to Richards for his efforts “in shaping modern theater and guiding some of today’s leading voices to the stage.” The Gish Award itself is a silver medallion, and the honor is accompanied by a prize of $200,000.

Richards is noted especially for his association with the work of August Wilson. He won the Tony in 1987 for his direction of Wilson’s Fences and was also nominated for directing the playwright’s Joe Turner’s Come and Gone, The Piano Lesson, and Seven Guitars. His first Tony nomination came in 1960 for Lorraine Hansberry’s A Raisin in the Sun.

Wilson and other theater notables are slated to pay tribute to Richards and to deliver remarks at the Gish Award ceremony, which will also feature some brief performances. The Hudson Theatre is located in the Millennium Broadway Hotel at 145 West 44th Street.