Guthrie Theater's Joe Dowling Receives Ivey Lifetime Achievement Award; 2015 Honorees Announced!

Joe Dowling, the Guthrie Theater's recently retired artistic director, was honored at the 2015 Ivey Lifetime Achievement Award, the celebration of Twin Cities theater, on September 21 at the Historic State Theatre in downtown Minneapolis. Critically-acclaimed actor Mikell Sapp received the Emerging Artist Award.

The 11th annual Ivey Awards attracted a sold-out audience to the show designed to recognize and showcase the work of professional theater companies and artists over the past year.

Based on evaluations completed by the more than 150 volunteer theater evaluators who saw more than 1,000 performances created by 78 professional theaters in the Minneapolis-St. Paul seven-county metropolitan area from September 2014 through August 2015, three productions and eight individuals/ensembles were also recognized with 2015 Iveys:

Productions Recognized
Gabriel (Walking Shadow Theatre Company) - Overall Excellence
Nothing is Something (Open Eye Figure Theatre) - Overall Excellence
Crime and Punishment (Live Action Set) - Production Design

Individual Recognition
Brian Sostek and Megan McClellan - Choreographers & Playwrights: Trick Boxing (Park Square Theatre)
Peter Rothstein - Director: Romeo & Juliet (Ten Thousand Things Theater Company)
Claudia Wilkens and Barbara Kingsley - Actors: Gertrude Stein and A Companion (Jungle Theater)
Mathew LeFebvre - Costume Designer: The Mystery of Irma Vep (Jungle Theater) and A Christmas Carol 2014 (Guthrie Theater)
Shá Cage - Actor: Grounded (Frank Theatre)
Joko Sutrisno - Music Director: Prince Rama's Journey (Green T Productions)
Steve Tyler - Music Director: The Pirates of Penzance (Ordway Center for the Performing Arts)
Ensemble - Actors: Marcus; or the Secret of Sweet (Pillsbury House Theatre)

The 2015 Iveys -- including pre-event activities, behind-the-scenes interviews and the Awards show -- will be featured in a two-hour primetime special on CW23 (The CW Network's Twin Cities affiliate) on Sunday, September 27 from 7-9 pm CST.

The Iveys are unique among awards events in the country in that they are open to the public and that there are no nominees, set number of awards or pre-determined award categories, with the exception of the Lifetime Achievement and the Emerging Artist Awards. The artists and organizations receiving special recognition are selected from evaluations completed by the general public and the volunteer theater evaluators. Each participating theater receives a vote to determine the Lifetime Achievement and Emerging Artist Awards.

JOE DOWLING (Lifetime Achievement Award) was the artistic director of the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis for 20 years. He began his acting career as a member of Ireland's national Abbey Theatre's acting company while he was a university student. He founded the Young Abbey, Ireland's first theater-in-education group in 1970. In 1973, he began his directing career at the Peacock Theatre (the Abbey's second stage) and in 1976 he was appointed artistic director of the national touring company, the Irish Theatre Company. In 1978, at the age of 29, he became the youngest-ever artistic director of the Abbey Theatre. After leaving the Abbey in 1985, Dowling became managing and artistic director of Dublin's oldest commercial theater, The Gaiety Theatre, where he founded and directed The Gaiety School of Acting, which is now regarded as Ireland's premiere drama school. In 1990, he began his extensive directing career in North America and aboard. He was appointed artistic director of the Guthrie Theater in 1995.

Dowling directed 48 Guthrie productions and cultivated relationships with an extensive roster of esteemed artists including Angela Bassett, David Esbjornson, John Guare, T.R. Knight, Ethan McSweeny, Arthur Miller, Marsha Norman, Lisa Peterson, Mark Rylance and Courtney B. Vance, among others. His directorial credits include work on Broadway as well as many prominent theaters in the United States, England and Ireland.

As a result of Dowling's vision and fortitude, the Guthrie opened its three-theater complex on the banks of the Mississippi River in 2006, a facility which allowed the Guthrie to broaden its repertoire and provide audiences with a range of productions year-round, serving approximately 400,000 patrons each year. The potential of the new space was realized with two theater-wide playwright celebrations -- Tony Kushner in 2009 and Christopher Hampton in 2012 -- for which all three stages and public spaces were devoted to the playwrights' work, including two Guthrie-commissioned plays.

Under Dowling's leadership, two actor training programs were created -- the University of Minnesota/Guthrie Theater B.F.A. Actor Training Program and A Guthrie Experience for Actors in Training. The Guthrie's partnership with The Acting Company of New York, affording young actors an opportunity to perform classics on tour throughout the country. Additionally, in 2001 Dowling developed the WorldStage Series, a program that invites internationally distinguished theater companies and artists to perform on Guthrie stages. More than a dozen companies have presented their work through the series, including the Royal Shakespeare Company with Sir Ian McKellen in King Lear, Kneehigh Theatre with Brief Encounter and Tristan & Yseult under the direction of Emma Rice, and Druid Theatre Company with its production of DruidSynge, directed by Garry Hynes. Through a personal and professional commitment to the Twin Cities arts community, Dowling also welcomed more than 33 local companies to the Dowling Studio, a 200-seat black box theater he envisioned for productions, presentations and workshops that would showcase the work of both emerging and established organizations.

MIKELL SAPP (Emerging Artist Award) was born and raised in Phenix City, Alabama. He graduated in 2009 from Alabama State University in Montgomery where he majored in Theatre Arts. There, he starred in several plays including Phaedra, West Side Story, Into the Woods and Jitney. Locally, he has performed with Pillsbury House Theatre (Broke-ology, Marcus; or the Secret of Sweet), Penumbra Theatre (The Ballad of Emmett Till, Spunk), Freshwater Theatre (Ivey Award-winning The Beacon From Belle Isle) and Mixed Blood Theatre (Pussy Valley) and is a member of BLACKOUT, an African American improv troupe based in the Twin Cities.