New York Stage and Film Announces Tidtaya Sinutoke as This Year's Billie Burke Ziegfeld Award Winner

Ziegfeld Club, Inc. has announced that Thailand born, NYC-based composer Tidtaya Sinutoke is the recipient of the sixth annual Billie Burke Ziegfeld Award. This prestigious award for a female musical theater composer is presented in partnership with New York Stage and Film. Past recipients of the Billie Burke Ziegfeld Award include the composers and composer/lyricists Masi Asare, Julianne Wick Davis, Anna K. Jacobs, Rona Sidiqqui and Shaina Taub. Sinutoke will receive the award at a virtual presentation on November 9.

The Billie Burke Ziegfeld Award, which includes a $10,000 grant, aims to celebrate an emerging female identifying composer or composer/lyricist who compellingly demonstrates outstanding artistic promise in musical theater composing and clearly demonstrates how the grant money and mentorship will further her artistic career. In addition, the recipient receives one year of artistic and professional mentorship from a prominent Broadway composer or producer. Previous mentors include Tony Awardwinning composer Jeanine Tesori; Tony Award-winning producer Daryl Roth; composer Kristen Anderson-Lopez; producer Barbara Whitman; and Pulitzer Prize-winner Lynn Nottage.

This year's selection committee included Ella Rose Chary, Kirsten Childs, Nikka Graff Lanzarone, Clara Luthas, Alexa Spiegel, Mary Sedarat, Nadav Wiesel, John Margulis, Laurie Sanderson, Natasha Sinha, Shea Sullivan and Rachel Sussman.

"We at the Ziegfeld Club are passionate about increasing the presence of women among the ranks of musical theater composers," said Ziegfeld Club Executive Director Laurie Sanderson. "I am overjoyed with our choice of Tidtaya Sinutoke; her talent is outstanding. I only wish we could have given the award to many more applicants, since the submissions were of such high quality. It is an honor to present this award for the first time in partnership with New York Stage and Film. Together our organizations can help emerging female/female identifying composers to receive the recognition and opportunities that they so richly deserve."

"To receive the Billie Burke Ziegfeld Award is an honor almost beyond my imagination," said Tidtaya Sinutoke. "From my childhood in Thailand, listening to my mother's rendition of show tunes, to studying music, to pursuing my dream in New York, has been a long, serendipitous journey. Khobkhun ka (thank you in Thai) to the Ziegfeld Club, New York Stage and Film and the committees for this honor and support."

Tidtaya Sinutoke (ฑิตยา สินุธก). Her composition credits include Half the Sky (5th Avenue Theatre's First Draft Commission); Sunwatcher (The Civilians R&D Group); Clouds are Pillows for the Moon (Yale Institute for Music Theatre, Kilroy's Honorable Mentions); Hart Island Requiem (The Civilians R&D Group, Polyphone Festival); and Water is Life (NYMF - How the Light Gets In). She was awarded a 2017 Jonathan Larson Grant and the 2020 Weston-Ghostlight New Musical Award. She is also a recipient of the Composer-Librettists Studio at New Dramatists, Johnny Mercer Songwriter Projects, NYFA IAM Mentoring Program, Robert Rauschenberg Residency, EtM Con Edison Composer-in-Residence, Musical Theatre Factory MAKERS Cohort, and Rhinebeck Writers Retreat. A proud member of ASCAP, the Dramatists Guild, Maestra, and the Thai Theatre Foundation. BM from Berklee College of Music; MFA in Musical Theatre Writing from New York University Tisch School of the Arts.