Obie Awards Will Continue Despite Village Voice Shutdown

It was announced yesterday that the Village Voice, a longtime mainstay in New York City news, would cease all publication beginning Friday.

The paper has sponsored the Obie Awards, which honor Off-Broadway theatre, since 1955, and questions began to circulate over what would happen to the ceremony now that the paper is no longer.

Michael Paulson of The New York Times talked to The American Theatre Wing, who assured him that the awards would continue.

Founded by Dan Wolf, Ed Fancher, and Norman Mailer in 1955, the Village Voice introduced free-form, high-spirited, and passionate journalism into the public discourse. As the nation's first alternative newsweekly, the Voice today carries on the same tradition of no-holds-barred reporting and criticism it embraced when it began publishing 60 years ago.

The recipient of three Pulitzer Prizes, the National Press Foundation Award, and the George Polk Award, the Voice remains a vigilant investigative watchdog and a go-to source for coverage of New York's vast cultural landscape. The Voice's unique mix of in-depth newswriting and reporting, incisive arts, culture, music, dance, film, and theater reviews, and comprehensive entertainment listings provides readers with an indispensable perspective on the inner workings of the world's most vibrant city.

The Voice website, www.villagevoice.com, has twice been recognized as one of the nation's premier online venues for quality journalism and local content. The site is a past winner of both the National Press Foundation's Online Journalism Award and the Editor & Publisher EPPY Award for Best Overall U.S. Weekly Newspaper Online.