Theater News

Sting, Jesse Eisenberg, and More Will Attend the 60th Annual Obie Awards

James Houghton, founding artistic director of Signature Theatre, will receive a special honor for Sustained Achievement.

Sting will be among the guests at the 60th Annual Obie Awards on May 18.
Sting will be among the guests at the 60th Annual Obie Awards on May 18.
(© David Gordon)

The American Theatre Wing, the Village Voice, and Obie judges chairman Michael Feingold are set to honor this year's recipients of the 60th Annual Obie Awards on May 18 at Webster Hall, with special guests including Sting, Jesse Eisenberg, Stockard Channing, T.R. Knight, LaChanze, Tommy Tune, Billy Crudup, Tonya Pinkins, Michael Cerveris, Malcolm Gets, Tony Kushner, Kathleen Chalfant, Jefferson Mays, Adriane Lenox, Alex Timbers, Mary Beth Peil, Michael Greif, Kristine Neilsen, Lisa Kron, Bradley Theodore, Tovah Feldshuh, Reed Birney, Natalie Cortez, Young Jean Lee, Susan Hilferty, Ching Valdes-Aran, and more. As previously announced, Orange Is the New Black star and Obie Award winner Lea DeLaria will host.

In addition, James Houghton, the founding artistic director of Signature Theatre, will receive a special Obie for Sustained Achievement. Signature Theatre is the first nonprofit theatre company in the United States to devote each season of productions to the work of a single living playwright. Under Houghton's leadership, the theater recently opened the Frank Gehry-designed Pershing Square Signature Center and expanded programming, including two additional playwrights’ residency programs.

The American Theatre Wing and the Village Voice present this year's Obie Awards, the first ceremony to take place under the new partnership. The Obies were originally created by the Village Voice to encourage off-Broadway theater and to acknowledge its achievements.

The Obie Awards judging panel is led by longtime Obie committee chairman and TheaterMania contributor Michael Feingold, and included playwright Adam Bock, orchestrator Bruce Coughlin, director Lear deBessonet, scenic designer Mimi Lien, critic David Rooney, Village Voice critic Tom Sellar, and director Liesl Tommy.

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