HERE Honors Anne Kauffman and Mike Pratt at MOXIE Gala

On Monday, May 1, HERE honors award-winning director Anne Kauffman and President of the Scherman Foundation, Mike Pratt, at HERE's annual gala. This year's gala, entitled MOXIE!, begins at 6:00pm with The Sassy Supper at City Winery (155 Varick Street) featuring VIP Cocktail Reception, silent auction, dinner and performances, and continues with the Guts & Glamour Party, beginning at 8:30pm at HERE (145 Sixth Avenue), with cocktails, delectables, silent auction, performances and dancing. HERE's MOXIE! gala, hosted by Helga Davis, features performances by The Bengsons & Jo Lampert, Viva Diconcini, Paul Pinto, Rob Roth, Amanda Szeglowski/cakeface, Tigger and Basil Twist. Proceeds support HERE, the award-winning producer and presenter of contemporary hybrid work for more than 20 years, renowned for the HERE Artist Residency Program, the Dream Music Puppetry Program, and the PROTOTYPE festival.

Tickets for The Sassy Supper include VIP cocktail reception beginning at 6:00pm, seated dinner at City Winery (155 Varick Street), and access to the Guts & Glamour Party. Individual dinner tickets are available at $500 or $1,000 levels, with tables available for purchase for $5,000, $10,000, and $25,000, and are accompanied by a range of perks. Full details at http://here.org/shows/detail/1761/.
Tickets are also available for the Guts & Glamour Party at HERE (145 Sixth Avenue) with doors at 8:30pm, and dancing from 10:00pm onwards. Guts & Glamour Party tickets are 1 for $100, or 2 for $150 using the code GLAMOUR, and can be purchased online at https://web.ovationtix.com/trs/pe.c/10078657. To buy tickets over the phone or via email, contact Liene Camarena Fogele, Development Associate, at 212.647.0202 ext. 326, or liene@here.org.

HONOREES:
Anne Kauffman is a New York based freelance director focused on new work. She started out as an actress and was gently persuaded to give it up when it was clear her talents were not pooling in that particular arena. She began directing in her undergraduate dorm and has been doing so ever since, with a brief hiatus in the humanitarian sector working to help Jews get out of the Soviet Union. When she first moved to NY, she had the great fortune to assist on many a show with brilliant directors and playwrights which inspired her passion for new work. She also had her NYC debut around that time at HERE, directing a 15-minute play by Lanford Wilson called Wandering. After attending graduate school at UCSD, she helped found The Civilians, "a company that creates new theater from creative investigations into the most vital questions of the present." With that company she created The Ladies with Anne Washburn (which premiered at HERE), You Better Sit Down: Tales from My Parents' Divorce with a group of company associates, and Maple and Vine with JorDan Harrison. She has had the honor of working with some of the greatest playwrights of her generation and the next, and at some of the greatest theaters in the country, small and large. She is a Sundance Program Associate, Clubbed Thumb Associate Artist and co-creator of the CT Directing Fellowship, New Georges Associate Artist, on the Artistic Council of Soho Rep, and an SDC Executive Board Member. She is the recipient of two OBIES (Directing and Sustained Excellence), the Joan and Joseph Cullman Award for Exceptional Creativity from Lincoln Center, the Alan Schneider Director Award, and three Barrymore Awards for Direction. She will make her Broadway debut with the Roundabout Theatre Company in June when she directs the Broadway premiere of Marvin's Room, and remains dedicated to the cultivation of directors of all levels in this country, and the promotion of small theaters doing big things. On May 1 at HERE's 2017 Gala, she will receive The Avant-Guardian Award.

Mike Pratt was born into an artistic family of an actor mother and a stage manager then photographer father (they actually met in summer stock). Surrounded now by artistic sons, nephews, and nieces - dancers, musicians and actors - and most importantly supported spiritually by his multi-talented wife, Carol - former musician and filmmaker, now fashion designer - he has the privilege of doing his part as the President of the Scherman Foundation. Established by Harry Scherman, the founder of the Book of the Month Club, and now chaired by his granddaughter, Dr. Karen Sollins, the Foundation provides general operating support to some of the city's brilliant small and mid-size arts organizations, including HERE. The Foundation also supports environmental, grassroots social justice, reproductive justice, and human rights organizations for a total grant making budget of $5 million in 2017. After graduating from Amherst College in 1979, Mike started his career at NYPIRG as a community organizer, later becoming Director of the Straphangers Campaign. After receiving a J.D. at the NYU School of Law he practiced law with the civil division of New York City's Legal Aid Society for 10 years, developing expertise in equitable development, federal housing subsidies and landlord tenant law. He was also able to be a bit theatrical in the courtroom. He entered the world of philanthropy through a one-year fellowship at the Rockefeller Family Fund in 1995 and joined the Scherman Foundation as a program officer until becoming the Foundation's President in 2009. He also serves as the Foundation's Treasurer, overseeing its investment portfolio. He has provided leadership in several outside philanthropic roles, including serving as Chair and Treasurer of the Environmental Grantmakers Association, Chair of the Advisory Committee of the Initiative for Neighborhood Organizing (INCO), and incoming Chair of Philanthropy New York. He currently serves as Vice Chair of the Board of Trustees of Pratt Institute, having served as Chair from 2007 until 2012. He is being honored on May 1 at HERE's 2017 Gala with The HEREmanitarian Award.

About HERE: The OBIE-winning HERE (Kristin Marting, Artistic Director and Kim Whitener, Producing Director), named a Top Ten Off-Off Broadway Theatre by Time Out New York, is a leader in the field of producing and presenting new, hybrid performance viewed as a seamless integration of artistic disciplines-theater, dance, music and opera, puppetry, media, visual and installation, spoken word and performance art. Standout productions include Eve Ensler's The Vagina Monologues, Basil Twist's Symphonie Fantastique and Arias with a Twist, Hazelle Goodman's On Edge, Trey Lyford & Geoff Sobelle's all wear bowlers, Young Jean Lee's Songs of the Dragons Flying to Heaven, Corey Dargel's Removable Parts, Taylor Mac's The Lily's Revenge, Kamala Sankaram's Miranda and Robin Frohardt's The Pigeoning, among many others. In 2008, following an extensive renovation, HERE re-opened the doors to its long-time downtown home for the arts, where it continues as a vibrant, welcoming haven for artists and audiences alike.

The HERE Artist Residency Program (HARP) has been HERE's signature development and producing program since 1998. HARP commissions, develops and premieres new hybrid performances. Productions developed at HERE challenge existing boundaries between disciplines. Through HARP, Resident Artists are given the unique opportunity to develop their projects for up to three years through free works-in-progress showings, workshop presentations in HERE's annual CULTUREMART festival, culminating in full-scale productions. Each season, HERE premieres several of these Resident Artist productions as mainstage works. These innovative projects are grown in a diverse artistic community where artists receive career development resources and hands-on training. HARP has been widely recognized as a unique model for artistic development for the field to emulate. In honoring HERE with the 2009 Ross Wetzsteon Award, the OBIE Committee noted, "it's become increasingly hard for artists to find a place to take risks, a safe haven where they can develop daring new work. One theater has regularly bucked the trend, making its mission to ensure that artists have a home for their research and development, and that theatregoers can sample the exciting results."

HERE is also home to the cross-disciplinary productions of Artistic Director Kristin Marting and proudly hosts adventurous artists, companies and productions, whether emerging or acclaimed, through its SubletSeries. It also presents work from New York, across the country, and around the globe through the Dream Music Puppetry Program (co-curated with Basil Twist), and the widely acclaimed PROTOTYPE: Opera/Theatre/Now festival of opera-theater and music-theater, co-produced with Beth Morrison Projects.