NEW YORK CITY: Ziegfeld Club Inc., a performing arts charity dedicated to helping women working in musical theatre, has announced that composer Tidtaya Sinutoke is the recipient of the sixth annual Billie Burke Ziegfeld Award. This award, presented in partnership with New York Stage and Film, includes a $10,000 grant. Sinutoke will receive the award during a virtual ceremony on Nov. 9.
“To receive the Billie Burke Ziegfeld Award is an honor almost beyond my imagination,” said Sinutoke in a statement. “From my childhood in Thailand, listening to my mother’s rendition of showtunes, to studying music, to pursuing my dream in New York, has been a long, serendipitous journey. Khobkhun ka (thank you in Thai) to the Ziegfeld Club, New York Stage and Film and the committees for this honor and support.”
An award for female musical theatre composers, the Billie Burke Ziegfeld Award’s past recipients include composers and composer/lyricists Masi Asare, Julianne Wick Davis, Anna K. Jacobs, Rona Sidiqqui, and Shaina Taub. The recipient of the award also receives one year of artistic and professional mentorship from a Broadway composer or producer. Previous mentors include Jeanine Tesori, Daryl Roth, Kristen Anderson-Lopez, Barbara Whitman, and Lynn Nottage.
This award aims to celebrate a female-identifying composer or composer/lyricist with “outstanding artistic promise” who clearly demonstrates how the grant and mentorship will further their artistic career. The selection committee for this round included Ella Rose Chary, Kirsten Childs, Nikka Graff Lanzarone, Clara Luthas, Alexa Spiegel, Mary Sedarat, Nadav Wiesel, John Margulis, Laurie Sanderson, Natasha Sinha, Shea Sullivan, and Rachel Sussman.
“We at the Ziegfeld Club are passionate about increasing the presence of women among the ranks of musical theatre composers,” said Ziegfeld Club executive director Laurie Sanderson in a statement. “I am overjoyed with our choice of Tidtaya Sinutoke; her talent is outstanding. I only wish we could have given the award to many more applicants, since the submissions were of such high quality. It is an honor to present this award for the first time in partnership with New York Stage and Film. Together our organizations can help emerging female/female identifying composers to receive the recognition and opportunities that they so richly deserve.”
Tidtaya Sinutoke’s (ฑิตยา สินุธก) composition credits include Half the Sky (5th Avenue Theatre’s First Draft Commission); Sunwatcher (the Civilians R&D Group); Clouds are Pillows for the Moon (Yale Institute for Music Theatre, Kilroy’s Honorable Mentions); Hart Island Requiem (the Civilians R&D Group, Polyphone Festival); and Water is Life (NYMF – How the Light Gets In). She was awarded a 2017 Jonathan Larson Grant and the 2020 Weston-Ghostlight New Musical Award. She is also a recipient of the Composer-Librettists Studio at New Dramatists, Johnny Mercer Songwriter Projects, NYFA IAM Mentoring Program, Robert Rauschenberg Residency, EtM Con Edison Composer-in-Residence, Musical Theatre Factory MAKERS Cohort, and Rhinebeck Writers Retreat. A proud member of ASCAP, the Dramatists Guild, Maestra, and the Thai Theatre Foundation. BM from Berklee College of Music; MFA in Musical Theatre Writing from New York University Tisch School of the Arts.
