Theater News

Jeremy Shamos to Join Laura Benanti as Host of 2018 Lucille Lortel Awards

Shamos will replace Jason Jones.

Jeremy Shamos will cohost the Lortel Awards.
Jeremy Shamos will cohost the Lortel Awards.
(© Tricia Baron)

Jeremy Shamos will join Laura Benanti in the hosting seat for the 2018 Lucille Lortel Awards, set to take place Sunday, May 6, at the NYU Skirball Center for the Performing Arts.

Shamos replaces the previously announced Jason Jones, who has bowed out of the award show due to a last-minute work obligation. Benanti and Shamos starred together earlier this season in the Broadway production of Steve Martin's Meteor Shower.

The Lucille Lortel Awards recognize outstanding achievement off-Broadway. Representatives of the Off-Broadway League, Actors' Equity Association, Stage Directors & Choreographers Society, and the Lucille Lortel Foundation serve on the voting committee, as do other off-Broadway professionals, theater journalists, and academics.

This year, the Lortels will honor In the Body of the World writer-performer Eve Ensler with the Lifetime Achievement Award; Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson composer Michael Friedman, who will have his name added posthumously to the famed Playwrights' Sidewalk in front of the Lucille Lortel Theatre; and WP Theater, which will receive the Outstanding Body of Work award.