Anna K. Jacobs Selected for 2016 Billie Burke Ziegfeld Award

The Ziegfeld Club has announced that Anna K. Jacobs has been selected to receive the 2016 Billie Burke Ziegfeld Award. The award will provide Jacobs with a grant of $10,000 and a year of professional mentorship from mentors including Tony Award-winning producer Barbara Whitman. Zoe Sarnak and Shaina Taub are the honorable mentions chosen by the awards panel. Recipients will be honored during a reception that will feature distinguished speaker Jeanine Tesori and a special musical performance by Masi Asare, who is the recipient of last year's inaugural award, on Monday, November 7, at the New Amsterdam Theatre.

The reception will also honor teaching artist Cecilia Smith, who was chosen to receive the first annual Liz Swados Inspiration Grant. In collaboration with The Ziegfeld Club, Oscar-nominated actress Diane Lane created the Liz Swados Inspiration Grant for NYC-based female educators vested in music, in honor of the composer.

Jacobs is Brooklyn-based composer and lyricist from Sydney, Australia, whose musicals include POP! (Yale Rep), Harmony, Kansas,and Stella and the Moon Man. She is currently developing a musical adaptation of the 2007 Sundance Award-winning indie horror film, Teeth, and Echo, a three-woman reimagining of the Echo and Narcissus myth. Jacobs is a Musical Theatre Factory Artist in Residence and holds an M.F.A. in Musical Theatre Writing from The New York University Tisch School of the Arts.

The reception will also feature a unique fashion collaboration called "Ziegfeld Then & Now," presented in partnership with Hanky Panky Lingerie and Darylynn Eyewear, that

will showcase a contemporary fashion show alongside a replica of an original Ziegfeld costume. Other memorabilia will be on display as well at the New Amsterdam Theatre, where Florenz Ziegfeld, Jr. maintained his office while the theatre was home to his legendaryZiegfeld Follies from 1913-1927.

The Billie Burke Ziegfeld Award was inspired by the lack of female composers being produced on Broadway today, with women having represented only 14% of composers, 9% of lyricists, and 7% of music directors and conductors in the 2014-15 Broadway season. The recipient of last year's inaugural award was Masi Asare, who received mentorship from Tony Award-winning composer Jeanine Tesori and Tony Award-winning producer Daryl Roth, in addition to the cash prize.

Actress Billie Burke originally founded The Ziegfeld Club in 1936, to honor her late husband, the musical theatre impresario and producer Florenz Ziegfeld Jr., and provide support for Ziegfeld Girls who had fallen on hard times. Ziegfeld prided himself on cultivating the careers of unknown performers, and today, The Ziegfeld Club aims to continue his legacy through supporting new work by women in musical theatre. The Ziegfeld Club also maintains archives of many unique items of American theatre, including original programs, sheet music, personal correspondence and costumes, as well as portraits of Ziegfeld Girls.

Website: www.theziegfeldclubinc.com

Anna K. Jacobs is a Brooklyn-based composer and lyricist from Sydney, Australia. Her musicals include POP! (Yale Rep, Pittsburgh City Theatre, Studio Theatre, with Maggie-Kate Coleman), Harmony, Kansas (Diversionary Theatre, with Bill Nelson), Stella and the Moon Man (STC/Theatre of Image, with Richard Tulloch and AdrIan Kelly), and the short musicals Cage Match and Magic 8 Ball (with Sam Salmond and Michael R. Jackson; both produced by Prospect Theatre Company). She is currently developing a musical adaptation of the 2007 Sundance Award-winning indie horror film,Teeth, and Echo, a three-woman reimagining of the Echo and Narcissus myth. Her work has received awards and nominations from The Ziegfeld Club, American Theatre Wing, ASCAP, San Diego Critics Circle, CT Critics Circle, Helen Hayes Awards, and Helpmann Awards. Evenings of her music and lyrics have been presented in concert at Lincoln Center, Ars Nova, The Laurie Beechman Theatre, Barrington Stage Company, NY Theatre Barn, and the Darlinghurst Theatre. She is a Musical Theatre Factory Artist in Residence, a former Ars Nova Uncharted Artist and Dramatists Guild Fellow, and was a participating composer in the New Dramatists Composer-Librettist Studio. She holds an M.F.A. in Musical Theatre Writing from NYU-Tisch. www.annakjacobs.com

Cecilia Smith has performed across the United States and internationally as a leading vibraphonist of the four-mallet technique. She is an avid composer and arranger with six internationally released albums, and has recorded and performed with renowned artists such as Gary Bartz, Greg Osby, Cassandra Wilson, Milt Hinton, Randy Weston, Marian McPartland ("Piano Jazz" NPR), Donald Harrison, Billy Pierce, Mulgrew Miller, and Cecil Bridgewater. She has presented throughout the United States and internationally, including the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. She received a Joyce Award for her multimedia work Crossing Bridges, and is currently developing a multimedia work titled Decisive Moments in collaboration with Blue Man Group video artist and filmmaker Kevin Frech. The educational component of Decisive Moments will be performed at a TEDx next month, featuring work that she has created with challenged teens. She is the Artistic Director of the Mary Lou Williams Resurgence Project, for which she received a National Endowment for the Arts American Masterpiece Award, and is also a teaching artist for a number of non-profit arts organizations and social service agencies. She is a graduate and formal faculty member of Berklee College of Music, and currently lives in the Park Slope section of Brooklyn, NY.

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Darylynn Eyewear's oversized, vintage-inspired frames offer modern day Glamazons an instant edge. Worn by musicians, celebrities and those who prefer to simply look the part. It's no wonder that powerful personalities like Heidi Klum, Kat von D, and Alan Cumming have all become fans of the brand's Audrey Hepburn meets David Bowie aesthetic. They are available in select boutiques and optical shops in New York, Miami, Detroit, Paris, Denmark, Spain, Ukraine, and Dubai, as well as their online shop. Their collaboration with TheZiegfeld Club highlights Darylynn's love of the music, fashion, glamour, décor and design of the Zeigfeld era, and their Ziegfeld-inspired frame is named "Nanon" in honor of The Ziegfeld Club executive director Laurie Sanderson's grandmother, Nanon Gardner Sanderson, who was a Ziegfeld dancer. http://darylynneyewear.com/