Hal Prince to Receive Eugene O'Neill Theater Center's Achievement Award, 4/5

Famed director/producer Hal Prince will receive the annual award for achievement in the theater from the Eugene O'Neill Theater Center, the New York Times is reporting. Executives of the Theatre Center announced Monday that Price will receive the award at a ceremony April 5th.

The award will be presented by Prince's friend and long-time collaborator Stephen Sondheim, with whom Prince worked on Company, Follies, and Sweeney Todd.

Preston Whiteway, executive director of the Theatre Center, released a statement on Monday, saying, "Hal Prince is an incredibly worthy recipient, not only is he a legend - the force behind many of the most iconic and important productions on the world stage in the last 60 years, but he has long been inspired by America's first major playwright, Eugene O'Neill. In fact, one of his first New York productions was an O'Neill play, ‘Great God Brown,' and he certainly has carried Eugene's ‘pioneering spirit' throughout his amazing career."

Harold Prince directed the premiere productions of Cabaret, the original Sweeney Todd, A Little Night Music, The Phantom of the Opera, She Loves Me, Company, Follies, Candide, Pacific Overtures, Evita, Parade and LoveMusik. Mr. Prince's producing credits include The Pajama Game, Damn Yankees, West Side Story, Fiddler on the Roof, Fiorello! and A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum. Among the plays he has directed are Hollywood Arms, The Visit, The Great God Brown, End of the World, Play Memory and his own play, Grandchild of Kings. Recently he prepared a new version of Phantom, which is running in Las Vegas at the Venetian Hotel. His opera productions have been seen at Lyric Opera of Chicago, the Metropolitan Opera, San Francisco Opera, Houston Grand Opera, Dallas Opera, Vienna Staatsoper and the Theater Colon in Buenos Aires. He served as a trustee for the New York Public Library and on the National Council of the Arts of the NEA. Recently, he became an officer with the Order of Arts and Letters from the French Government for "contributing significantly to furthering the arts in France and throughout the world." He is the recipient of a National Medal of Arts for the year 2000 from President Clinton for a career spanning more than 40 years, in which "he changed the nature of the American musical." The recipient of 21 Tony Awards, he was a 1994 Kennedy Center Honoree.

Founded in 1964 by George C. White and named in honor of America's only Nobel Prize-winning playwright, The O'Neill is home to six distinct programs: the O'Neill Playwrights Conference, Music Theater Conference, Puppetry Conference, National Theater Institute, Critics Institute and the Monte Cristo Cottage, O'Neill's childhood home located in neighboring New London. At The O'Neill, writers and directors, puppeteers and singers, students and audiences alike take their first steps in exploring, revising and understanding their work and the potential of the theater they help create.

The work of The O'Neill focuses on the script as it begins its journey to the stage. The actors work with minimal props and no sets or costumes, holding scripts in their hands, revealing for the first time the magic of a new play or musical, puppetry piece or cabaret act. Work first performed at The O'Neill has gone on to regional theaters, Broadway, movies and television. Students and professionals who have honed their skills at The O'Neill can be seen in these venues every day across the country. Others work behind the scenes as playwrights, directors, in stage management, publicity and a hundred other roles that the public never sees but are nonetheless essential to every production.

Staff and alumni from The O'Neill have won every major award in theater arts. The O'Neill itself is the winner of a special Tony Award, the National Opera Award, the Jujamcyn Award of Theater Excellence and the Arts and Business Council Encore Award. The seven hundred plays and musicals developed and premiered at The O'Neill include such notable works as John Guare's THE HOUSE OF BLUE LEAVES, Brian Crawley and Jeanine Tesori's VIOLET, Wendy Wasserstein's UNCOMMON WOMEN AND OTHERS, August Wilson's Ma Rainey'S BLACK BOTTOM, FENCES and THE PIANO LESSON, Lee Blessing's A WALK IN THE WOODS, NINE by Arthur Kopit, Mario Fratti and Maury Yeston, AVENUE Q, IN THE HEIGHTS, and STORY OF MY LIFE.

For more information, visit www.theoneill.org.

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