Hwang et al. to Judge Village Voice's 56th Annual Obie Awards; Ceremony Held 5/16

The Village Voice, the nation's first and largest alternative weekly newspaper, announced the judges for the 56th Annual Village Voice Obie Awards. The Voice's chief theater critic, Michael Feingold, will again chair the Obie Awards committee. Joining him will be Voice critic Alexis Soloski and four guest judges: Critic Hilton Als of The New Yorker; playwright David Henry Hwang, a three-time Obie Award winner for his plays F.O.B., Golden Child, and Yellow Face; director Evan Yionoulis, an Obie award winner for her production of Richard Greenberg's Three Days of Rain; and critic Andy Propst, of TheaterMania AmericanTheaterWeb.com (and also a frequent Voice contributor), who will again serve as secretary to the committee.

Founded in 1955 by Voice cultural editor Jerry Tallmer, The Village Voice Obie Awards annually honor the best of Off-Broadway and Off-Off Broadway. Unlike most theater awards, the Obies do not publicize nominations or employ rigid categories in which a "Best" is selected. In the conviction that creativity is not competitive, the judges select outstanding artists and productions and may even invent new categories to reward artistic merit. Past winners have included well-known stars such as Dustin Hoffman, Meryl Streep, William Hurt, Morgan Freeman, Mos Def, Amy Irving, Kevin Kline, Nathan Lane, Olympia Dukakis, Robert Duvall, Denzel Washington, Kevin Bacon, Alec Baldwin, Kathy Bates, James Earl Jones, Joan Cusack and Harvey Fierstein, to name a few.

The venue for the presentation of the 2010-2011 Village Voice Obie Awards on Monday, May 16, 2011 is Webster Hall. Tickets will be available for $25 to attend the ceremony soon at obies.villagevoice.com. Names of the ceremony's hosts and presenters and entertainment will be forthcoming.

Photo Credit: Linda Lenzi