Flux Theatre Ensemble Awarded the 2011 Caffé Cino Fellowship Award

The New York Innovative Theatre Awards announced on Monday that Flux Theatre Ensemble is to be awarded this year's 2011 Caffé Cino Fellowship Award, presented annually to an Off-Off-Broadway theatre company that consistently produces outstanding work. This award also includes a grant to be used toward an Off-Off-Broadway production. Flux Theatre Ensemble produces transformative theatre that explores and awakens the capacity for change. As an ensemble-artist driven company, they believe that long-term collaboration and rigorous creative development can unite artists and audiences to build a creative home in New York.

"Receiving the Caffé Cino Fellowship Award is more than an honor for Flux: it is a charge to reach farther and dare further to live up to the legacy of the Caffé Cino and the extraordinary theatres who have won this award before us," says Artistic Director August Schulenburg. "The Cino honors a single company, but in the spirit of a larger community, and we gratefully accept this award as fellow artists of that larger movement."

Flux Theatre Ensemble will use the grant awarded them to produce Erin Browne's MENDERS, January 2012 at The Gym at Judson (55 Washington Square South), home of the original Judson Poets' Theatre who along with Caffé Cino were the original pioneers of the off-off Broadway theatre movement.

FLUX THEATRE ENSEMBLE produces transformative theatre that explores and awakens the capacity for change. As an ensemble-artist driven company, Flux believes that long-term collaboration and rigorous creative development can unite artists and audiences to build a creative home in New York. Flux is the proud recipient of two NYC Fringe Festival Awards: in 2007 the Village Voice Audience Favorite Award for August Schulenburg's Riding the Bull and in 2008 for Heather Cohn's "Outstanding Direction" of Other Bodies. In 2008 nytheatre.com chose Flux Theatre Ensemble as one of their "People of the Year" saying "This rising theatre company had a hit in the New York International Fringe Festival with Other Bodies, written by artistic director August Schulenburg, and then went on to mount the fall's most ambitious indie show, Johnna Adams's Angel Eaters Trilogy." Flux received a Citation for Excellence in Off-Off Broadway Theatre from the Independent Theater Bloggers Association and seven New York Innovative Theatre Award nominations for The Angel Eaters Trilogy including a win for Best Sound Design. In 2010, director Heather Cohn was nominated for a New York Innovative Theatre Award for The Lesser Seductions of History. In addition to winning this year's Caffé Cino Award Flux also received two nominations for their production of Dog Act including Outstanding Actress in a Featured Role: Becky Byers and Outstanding Scenic Design: Jason Paradine.

THE INNOVATIVE THEATRE FOUNDATION recognizes the great work of New York's Off-Off-Broadway - honoring its artistic heritage and providing a meeting ground for this extensive and richly varied community. As advocates for Off-Off-Broadway, they recognize its unique and essential role in global culture. Each season, The Innovative Theatre Foundation publicly recognizes excellence in Off-Off-Broadway, with a high-profile awards ceremony. The New York Innovative Theatre Awards celebrate the community and honor some of the year's greatest achievements. The IT Awards heighten audience awareness and foster greater appreciation of the New York theatre experience. To learn more about The Innovative Theatre Foundation and its programs, visit www.nyitawards.org.