Lucille Lortel - Awards and Honors

Awards and Honors

1950-1979

• Ms. Lortel received the Greater New York Chapter of ANTA Award and the National ANTA Award in 1950, 1961, and 1962 for "pioneering work fostering playwrights, directors, and actors." Her productions of The Threepenny Opera (1956), Guests of the Nation (1958), and The Balcony (1960) received Obie Awards. She received a special citation from the Obie Awards "for fostering and furthering the spirit of the theatrical experiment" (1958) and the first ever Margo Jones Award (1962) for "significant contribution to the dramatic art with hitherto unproduced plays."
• In 1975, the League of Off-Broadway Theatres and Producers presented her with a plaque citing her distinguished achievement. On the same occasion, the Hon. Abraham Beame, Mayor of the City of New York, presented Ms. Lortel with a certificate of appreciation, and New York City Council President Paul O'Dwyer signed a city proclamation citing Lucille Lortel for her cultural contributions to New York City. In January 1976, Ms. Lortel was honored by the state of Connecticut's Governor, Ella Grasso, for her efforts to promote the work of women playwrights on behalf of the United Nations' International Women's Year. In 1979, Ms. Lortel received the Villager Award for pioneering spirit in Off-Broadway.

1980's

• On September 29, 1980, at an Actors' Fund benefit gala celebrating the 25th Anniversary of the Theatre de Lys, Ms. Lortel was presented with a Certificate of Merit from the City of New York, and the theatre was renamed Lucille Lortel's Theatre de Lys. On April 6, 1981, the Museum of the City of New York honored her with an exhibition proclaiming her "The Queen of Off-Broadway" (a title first given to her in 1962 by Richard Coe of The Washington Post). The exhibit inaugurated the Lucille Lortel Theatre Gallery in permanent recognition of Ms. Lortel's contribution to the theatre world.
• Ms. Lortel received the Double Image Theatre Award in December 1981, and in March 1982 she was given the American Theatre Hall of Fame's Arnold Weissberger Award.
• The 38th volume of Theatre World is dedicated "To Lucille Lortel whose vibrant spirit and untiring efforts have made immeasurable contributions to all components of the theatre by discovering and encouraging new talents, and whose devotion to Off-Broadway provided the impetus for its proliferation." In 1983, Ms. Lortel was presented with a special scroll signed by all the members of the American Theatre Wing, and her caricature was placed among other theatrical luminaries on the wall at Sardi's.
• In the spring of 1985 Ms. Lortel received the first annual Lee Strasberg Lifetime Achievement in Theatre Award during the 30th Anniversary celebration of the Lucille Lortel Theatre. At Yale University, Ms. Lortel established "The Lucille Lortel Fund For New Drama," an endowment that supports the production of new theatre works. In honor of her support of new playwrights and drama, Yale Repertory Theatre's Artistic Director Lloyd Richards presented Ms. Lortel with the framed, autographed artwork for the program of August Wilson's Fences, which was the first play to be nurtured by her fund for new drama. Fences became the most honored Broadway play in history (at that point), winning the Pulitzer Prize, four Tony Awards, as well as Drama Desk, New York Drama Critics Circle and Theatre World Awards. Also in May 1985, Ms. Lortel received an Honorary Doctorate of Fine Arts from the University of Bridgeport, and in June critic Clive Barnes presented Ms. Lortel with the 1985 Special Theatre World Award for her continuing discovery and encouragement of new talent.
• In 1986 the League of Off-Broadway Theatres and Producers established the Lucille Lortel Awards in her name to honor outstanding productions and individual achievements in each current Off-Broadway season. (For a complete listing of recipients please go to www.lortelawards.com.) In November 1986, The Players Club saluted Ms. Lortel as "The First Lady of Off-Broadway" in a special evening presided over by Jose Ferrer with Joseph Papp acting as Master of Ceremonies. Ms. Lortel (along with Colleen Dewhurst and others) was honored by the Women's Project with an Exceptional Achievement Award and by the Catholic Actors Guild with the George M. Cohan Award.
• In May 1987, Fairfield University bestowed an Honorary Degree of Doctor of Humane Letters upon Ms. Lortel in recognition of her pioneering the cause of new drama and its artists. She became the first resident of Westport to be honored by the Connecticut Commission on the Arts when she was presented with the 1987 Connecticut Arts Award recognizing her distinguished career as an actress, producer and artistic director.
• The Lucille Lortel Theatre Collection, an archive of theatrical history and personal memorabilia, donated by Ms. Lortel, is on permanent exhibition at the Westport Public Library. This exhibition includes the 1988 Emmy Award presented to Ms. Lortel as Executive Producer of the teleplay Gertrude Stein and a Companion.
• On April 10, 1989, the Graduate Center of the City University of New York inaugurated The Lucille Lortel Distinguished Professorial Chair in Theatre, the first theatre chair to be named for a woman, and later in the spring she was honored by The New York Public Library as a Lion of the Performing Arts, a distinctive group of people whose work is well represented in the vast collections on dance, music, and theatre in The Performing Arts Research Center at Lincoln Center. Honors continued to come Ms. Lortel's way with receipt of a plaque from The New England Theatre Conference in November 1989.

1990's

• In 1990, Ms. Lortel was inducted into the American Theatre Hall of Fame along with Joseph Papp and Lloyd Richards; and was given the rarely presented Actors Fund Medal of Honor during ceremonies at "The Lucille Lortel Off-Off-Broadway" Theatre located in the Actors' Fund Extended Care Facility in Englewood, New Jersey.
• Ms. Lortel was honored on May 20, 1991 with a reception in Governor Lowell P. Weicker's residence in Hartford, Connecticut, on the occasion of the establishment of the White Barn Theatre Museum.
• A major exhibition of her theatrical memorabilia entitled "The Theatres of Lucille Lortel" was shown in the Vincent Astor Gallery of the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts at Lincoln Center from October 21, 1991, through January 4, 1992.
• Honorary Lifetime Membership in the New England Theatre Conference was conferred upon Ms. Lortel on November 9, 1991, "in recognition of her outstanding contribution to theatre in New England, the country, and the world."
• On February 27 and 29, 1992, Ms. Lortel received back-to-back honors—she was presented with the Lifetime Achievement Award from The Christophers in New York and the Kennedy Center Medallion from the American College Theatre Festival in a ceremony at Fairfield University.
• Shivaun O'Casey, daughter of Sean O'Casey and Artistic Director of The O'Casey Theatre Company, presented the first Sean O'Casey Award to Ms. Lortel on June 22, 1992 "in honor of all her work for the theatre, for the writers and the artists, and for her many productions (15) in this country of Sean's early as well as later works."
• On May 6, 1993, Ms. Lortel received the Drama League's annual "Unique Contribution to Theatre" Award, and later that month, in the company of Ralph Ellison and Andrew Heiskell, was the recipient of an Honorary Doctorate of Fine Arts from the City University of New York during the annual commencement of the Graduate School and University Center at Town Hall.
• The September 1993 Greenwood Press (Westport, CT) publication of Lucille Lortel: A Bio-Bibliography by Sam McCready was celebrated with book parties at the Westport Public Library and at the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts at Lincoln Center where a permanent tribute to her career is on display in The Lucille Lortel Room of the Theatre on Film and Tape Archive (since November 1990, the home and viewing facility for TOFT's collection of more than 2,000 tapes of Broadway, Off-Broadway and regional theatre productions).
• On Saturday, October 5, 1996, Ms. Lortel was a member of the first group of individuals (including Bella Abzug, Ed Koch and Leontyne Price) to be inducted into the Greenwich Village Hall of Fame. The 14th Annual Helen Hayes Award was presented to Miss Lortel by Miss Hayes' son, James MacArthur, on Monday, November 26, 1996. The exhibition on her career, "The Queen of Off-Broadway" (displayed in the White Barn Theatre Museum in 1996), was mounted in the lobby of the Miller Theatre on the Columbia University campus during February 1997, at the Westport Historical Society's Wheeler House in conjunction with the June 28th cabaret evening that honored Ms. Lortel and the 50th Anniversary of the White Barn Theatre.
• On November 17, 1997, Arthur Miller delivered the first Lucille Lortel Lecture on Playwriting at Columbia University School of the Arts. The Lee Strasberg Theatre Institute honored Ms. Lortel in December with plaques installed in the New York and Los Angeles schools commemorating "her vision and generosity in making possible the preservation of The Lee Strasberg Lecture Archives." She received the League of Professional Theatre Women/NY's Lifetime Achievement Award at Sardi's on December 16.
• On April 17, 1998, His Eminence John Cardinal O'Connor presided over the dedication and unveiling of a plaque naming The Lucille Lortel Lobby of St. Clare's Hospital and Health Center at 415 West 51st Street in New York's Theatre District.