The League of Independent Theater has announced the half dozen recipients of the 2024 New York independent Theater Awards, honoring “outstanding leadership, service, artistry and commitment to the indie and Off-Off Broadway theatrical landscape.”
Everett Quinton Award – Kevin R. Free, writer, performer, director and artistic director of Mile Square Theater. (“We make things on a shoestring and we come together to make it happen – BECAUSE WE HAVE TO.”)
Ellen Stewart Award – The Muse Project, an experimental initiative that centers women theater actors, founder and artistic director Jocelyn Kuritsky. (“I want people to feel that they are not alone or lonely.… Indie/OOB is for big risks — the biggest.”)
Caffe Cino Award – Houses on the Moon Theater Company, founded in 2001 and led by artistic director Emily Joy Weiner. (“There was a calling for new work, stories, and voices that were not often or ever heard,”)
Outstanding Stage Manager Award – Berit Johnson, who has been working in Indie Theater in NYC since 1996 as a stage manager and prop designer, including with Untitled Theater Company #61 (“Berit is a collaborator, in every sense of the word,” UTC’s Edward Einhorn.)
Indie Theatre Champion Award – Rev. Micah Bucey, Senior Minister at Judson Memorial Church in Greenwich Village, a community committed to expansive spirituality, radical social justice, and uncensored creative expression. (“..a little space, a little story, and a little group of people can always mightily trouble the deadly waters of complacency…”)
Artistic Achievement Award – Theresa Linnihan, performer, designer and associate director for nearly 30 years of the Czechslovak American Marionette Theater, as well as a player and producer for The Puppet Co-op, (“”To me, theater is an example of the world at peace. Peace is dynamic, adaptable, a struggle of personalities and ideas”)
A celebration of the award recipients will be held on September 9th, 2024, at the indie theater venue Brooklyn Art Haus
The New York Independent Theater Award, now in its second year, is sponsored by The League of Independent Theater, a decade-old arts advocacy organization that realized the need for such an award after the long-running annual New York Innovative Theater Awards for Off-Off Broadway ceased to exist (as did its sponsoring organization, the New York Innovative Theater Foundation) in 2020.
