History
The Inaugural recipients included Betty Comden, Judy Holliday and John Raitt. Winners are selected by a committee of New York-based critics. That committee includes (as of June 2012) David Cote (Time Out New York, NY1), Joe Dziemianowicz (New York Daily News), Peter Filichia (Newark Star-Ledger, Theatermania.com), Harry Haun (Playbill), Matthew Murray (TalkinBroadway.com), Frank Scheck (Hollywood Reporter), and Linda Winer (New York Newsday). John Willis, founder of the Theatre World Awards and Theatre World Editor, died in June 2010. (Theatre World is the oldest definitive pictorial and statistical record of each American theatrical season and serves as a reference for theater professionals, students, and historians worldwide.)
Known as "Janus" after the Roman god of entrances, exits, and all beginnings, the award is a bronze sculpture designed by artist Harry Marinsky.
The winners for the 2010-2011 season were announced on May 10, 2011, with a ceremony to be held June 7; the awards are traditionally presented by former award winners. The awards for the 2011-2011 season were announced on May 8, 2012 and presented at a ceremony held on June 5, 2012 at the Belasco Theatre.
The Dorothy Loudon Starbaby Award is given by the Dorothy Loudon Foundation in connection with these awards. The first Starbaby Award was presented to Susan Louise O'Connor (Blithe Spirit) in 2009. Other recipients are Bobby Steggert (Ragtime and Yank!) (2009-2010), Seth Numrich (War Horse) (2010-2011),and Susan Pourfar (Tribes).
The first annual Lunt-Fontanne Award for Ensemble Excellence was presented at the 2010-2011 Awards, to the cast of The Motherf**ker with the Hat - Bobby Cannavale, Chris Rock, Annabella Sciorra, Elizabeth Rodriguez and Yul Vázquez. The award is in honor of the late Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne and is presented to an outstanding Broadway or Off-Broadway ensemble.
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“It’s not the sentiments of men which make history but their actions.”
—Norman Mailer (b. 1923)
“History does nothing; it does not possess immense riches, it does not fight battles. It is men, real, living, who do all this.... It is not “history” which uses men as a means of achieving—as if it were an individual person—its own ends. History is nothing but the activity of men in pursuit of their ends.”
—Karl Marx (1818–1883)
“There is a constant in the average American imagination and taste, for which the past must be preserved and celebrated in full-scale authentic copy; a philosophy of immortality as duplication. It dominates the relation with the self, with the past, not infrequently with the present, always with History and, even, with the European tradition.”
—Umberto Eco (b. 1932)