Reverend Billy & The Stop Shopping Choir to Receive 2016 Edwin Booth Award

Reverend Billy & The Stop Shopping Choir is the winner of the 2016 Edwin Booth Award. The Award ceremony will take place Monday, May 9, 2016 beginning at 6:30pm in The Martin E. Segal Theatre Center at the CUNY Graduate Center, 365 Fifth Avenue, at 34th Street. Admission is FREE but seating is limited. Reservations: awalls@gradcenter.cuny.edu

Reverend Billy & The Stop Shopping Choir is an iconic New York ensemble and a radical performance community with 50 performing members and a congregation in the thousands. "We are wild anti-consumerist gospel shouters and Earth-loving urban activists who have worked with communities all over the world defending community, life, and imagination. We compel action in those who have never been activists, revive exhausted activists, and devise new methods for future activism. We also put on a great show." For more information about Reverend Billy, please visit: http://www.revbilly.com/.

The Edwin Booth Award was established in 1983 by the Doctoral Theatre Students Association (DTSA) to honor a person, organization, or company for their outstanding contribution to the New York City/American Theatre and Performance Community. Recipients of the Booth Award are nominated and elected exclusively by students in the program. Named after the nineteenth-century tragedian Edwin Booth, renowned for his intellectual curiosity, the award promotes integration of the professional and academic theatre communities. The 2015 Booth Award was given to playwright María Irene Fornés. Past honorees include: The Royal Shakespeare Company ('83), Ellen Stewart ('84), Joseph Papp ('89), Arthur Miller ('92), Richard Foreman ('97), Tony Kushner ('02), Karen Finley ('08), The Living Theater ('09), Charles Mee ('10), Woodie King, Jr. ('13), Elevator Repair Service ('14), and others.

Recipients choose the format of the event, which has varied from panel discussions to personal testimony. The event is recorded for the Theatre Department's archives. Following the Award ceremony, there will be a reception catered by Herbncooking (Chef Mustapha) and sponsored by Original Sin Cider. The Edwin Booth Award is made possible by support from the Doctoral Students' Council (DSC), representing Doctoral and Masters students at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York.

The Martin E. Segal Theatre Center (MESTC), The Graduate Center, CUNY, is a non-profit Center for theatre, affiliated with CUNY's Ph.D. Program in Theatre. The Center's primary focus is to bridge the gap between the academic and professional performing arts communities by providing an open environment for the development of educational, community-driven, and professional projects in the performing arts. www.theSegalCenter.org.

This event is FREE and open to the public. First come, first served. More information:

http://thesegalcenter.org/event/booth-award-reverend-billy-and-the-stop-shopping-choir/

The Martin E. Segal Theatre Center, The Graduate Center, City University of New York, 365 Fifth Avenue, at 34th Street. Subway: Herald Square, lines B, D, F, M, N, Q, R.

http://www.thesegalcenter.org. Info: 212-817-1868.

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