NEW YORK CITY: Broadway Black will present the inaugural Antonyo Awards in celebration of the Black Broadway and Off-Broadway community on June 19 at 7 p.m. ET. The event will include a pre-show virtual red carpet, original musical numbers, star presenters and performers, and more. Nominees were selected, and the public voted on winners in early June.

“In our first meeting we decided on Juneteenth for the awards, as it is a more accurate date of freedom from slavery for Black Americans,” says Drew Shade, founder of Broadway Black, a multimedia organization. “The Antonyos honor contributors to Black theatre from actors to stage and company managers, administrators and costume designers. Everyone in our community deserves to be acknowledged in what we hope will be a funny, authentic, celebratory event that is for us, by us.”

Current presenters and performers include Audra McDonald, Tituss Burgess, Alex Newell, Jordan E. Cooper, Teyonah Parris, Ephraim Sykes, LaChanze, Derrick Baskin, Nicolette Robinson, Jelani Alladin, Christiani Pitts, James Monroe Iglehart, Amber Iman, Kalen Allen, Nzinga Williams, Jackson Alexander, Cody Renard Richard, Ashton Muñiz, Shereen Pimentel, Kirsten Childs, Aisha Jackson, Antoine L. Smith, Griffin Matthews, Michael McElroy, Jocelyn Bioh, and L Morgan Lee, with more to come.

Four special “Kinfolk Awards”—the Lorraine Hansberry Award, the Langston Hughes Award, Welcome Award and the Doors of the Theatre Are Open Award—will also be presented to members of the Black theatre community, as well as a Lifetime Achievement Award to be announced prior to the event.

The creative team for the event includes Catherine Caldwell, Darius Barnes, Kim Exum, Neville Braithwaite, Zhailon Levingston, Elijah Lewis, Allen René Louis, Eric Lockley, Edward Mawere, Emma Claye, Ianne Fields Stewart, and the Press Room.