Stephen McKinley Henderson to Receive Lifetime Achievement Award at 2023 Lortel Awards

The 38th Annual Lucille Lortel Awards will be held on Sunday, May 7 at NYU Skirball Center. This year's ceremony — in addition to the non-gendered performance awards and ensemble award that were added last year — will include the presentation of three special awards.

Stephen McKinley Henderson, currently starring on Broadway in Stephen Adley Guirgis's Pulitzer Prize-winning play Between Riverside and Crazy, will receive a Lifetime Achievement Award, honoring his career of celebrated stage and screen performances. A seasoned performer of August Wilson's work, he has appeared on Broadway in productions of King Hedley II, Ma Rainey's Black Bottom, and Fences (Tony nomination). His Broadway credits also include A Raisin in the Sun, A Doll's House, Part 2, Dracula, the Musical, and Drowning Crow. On screen, he has been seen in Denis Villeneuve's Dune, Denzel Washington's Fences, and Greta Gerwig's Lady Bird, among many other film and TV projects.

Playwright and poet Ntozake Shange, best known for her choreopoem For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide/When the Rainbow Is Enuf, will be posthumously inducted onto the Playwrights' Sidewalk in front of the historic Lucille Lortel Theatre. A.R.T./New York will additionally be presented with a Body of Work award, celebrating the institution's 50 years of contributions to the field of nonprofit theater.

The Lucille Lortel Awards will be open to the public, with tickets available for purchase beginning April 7. The ceremony is a benefit for the Entertainment Community Fund and fans are encouraged to make donations. For more information or to donate, click here.