NEW YORK: The Dramatists Guild of America announced today that David Henry Hwang is the recipient of its 2025 Lifetime Achievement Award. The award, presented by the Dramatists Guild Council in recognition of distinguished lifetime achievement in theatrical writing, will be presented at the Guild’s annual awards ceremony on Monday, April 28.
David Henry Hwang was most recently represented on Broadway with the critically acclaimed revival of Yellow Face starring Daniel Dae Kim. He is a Tony, Grammy, and three-time OBIE Award winner, as well as a three-time finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in Drama. His stage works includes the plays M. Butterfly, Yellow Face, Chinglish, Golden Child, The Dance and the Railroad, and FOB, as well as the musicals Aida, Flower Drum Song, Disney’s Tarzan, and Soft Power. Hwang is currently working on the new musical Particle Fever, based on the 2013 documentary about the largest scientific experiment ever undertaken. Recent honors include his 2022 induction onto the Lucille Lortel Playwrights Sidewalk, his seventh Honorary Doctorate from California State University in 2022, his 2021 election to the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, and his 2018 induction into the Theatre Hall of Fame. Hwang has been a member of the Dramatists Guild since 1979 and also serves on the Council of the Guild. He is a Trustee of the American Theatre Wing, which he chaired in 2016-2021.
CHICAGO: On March 25, this year’s 51st annual Non-Equity Jeff Awards ceremony celebrated the 2024 Chicago non-union theatre season at the Harris Theater. Thirty-three award recipients were honored from among 138 nominees in 25 artistic and technical categories. The awards were presented live in an evening that was co-hosted by Chicago entertainers Frankie Leo Bennett and NK Gutiérrez, with direction by Adrian Abel Azevedo, music direction by Dr. Michael McBride, and many nominated productions and dozens of local theatre artists as presenters.
Kokandy Productions received the most awards, with five for Into the Woods, including honors for Production – Musical, Ensemble, Direction, Musical Director for a Musical/Revue, and Artistic Specialization for orchestrations. Open Space Arts took home four awards for its Short Run Productions, including Cock, which was honored for Short Run Production and Short Run Supporting Performer, and Light Switch, which was honored for Short Run Director and Short Run Principal Performer.
Other companies with multiple wins included City Lit Theater Company, with August Wilson’s Seven Guitars honored for Production – Play and Performer in a Supporting Role and Murder in the Cathedral honored for Costume Design, and Refracted Theatre Company, which received three awards for Coronation: Performer in a Supporting Role, Lighting and Projection Design. Awards for New Work included Brynne Frauenhoffer’s Pro-Am at First Floor Theater and Erik Gernand’s The Totality of All Things at Redtwist Theatre.
This year’s awards launched the new Non-Equity Jeff Impresario Award, which honors excellence in stage management based on nominations by theatre companies. It will now be given annually at the Non-Equity and Equity Jeff Awards. Kyle Aschbrenner received the inaugural award for his stage management work at Blank Theatre Company. Additionally, the Theatre School at DePaul University received the 2025 Special Award for its 100-year legacy of training exceptional artists and its profound influence on the Chicago theater community and beyond.
The complete list of Non-Equity Jeff Award winners can be found here.
LOS ANGELES: IAMA Theatre Company selected Alicia Carroll as the 2025 recipient of The Rhimes Unsung Voices Playwriting Commission, sponsored by IAMA patron of the arts Shonda Rhimes (Grey’s Anatomy, Scandal, Bridgerton) and the Rhimes Foundation. Now in its eighth year, this commission was created to nurture emerging playwrights, with an emphasis on cultural inclusion and fresh creativity in theatre. It supports a writer from an underrepresented community who has been minimally professionally produced, but has not had a commercial, Off-Broadway, or Broadway production of their work.
Alicia Carroll is a playwright and TV writer hailing from Philadelphia and the D.C., Maryland, and Virginia area (DMV). Her writing credits include Pitch Perfect: Bumper in Berlin (Peacock), The Watchful Eye (Freeform), Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist (NBC), and Crooked Media’s comedic show and podcast Lovett or Leave It. She has participated in several fellowships and labs across mediums as a writer, including Film Independent’s Project Involve Fellowship, Women In Film: Insight Fellowship, IAMA Theatre Company’s Emerging Playwrights Lab, Ensemble Studio Theatre L.A.’s Ignite Lab, The Workshop Theater’s Winter Rewrite Intensive, and The Orchard Project’s Greenhouse Lab. When she’s not writing, Carroll teaches TV writing online at Story Brain Academy, Writing Workshops, The Writing Pad and Sundance Collab. She also works with Expand The Canon, bringing classics by underrepresented playwrights to the forefront.
LOS ANGELES: artEquity announced arts advocate and cultural worker Tomás J. Benitez as one of the recipients of the 2025 BIPOC Elders + Culture Bearers Grant, in a group that also includes cultural activist Toni McClendon, founding board member of the San Antonio Gay Assembly Graciela Sanchez, and Alaska Native (Iñupiaq) journalist John Tetpo. In this eighth round of funding out of artEquity’s Artist + Activist Community Fund, the grant offers $5,000 each in unrestricted funds to visionary BIPOC elders and culture bearers who have gifted their community with a legacy of art and activism. It was created to honor the wisdom and artistic contributions of artist elders who have worked towards the healing and transformative power of the arts for generations.
Tomás J. Benitez has been an arts advocate and cultural worker for 50 years. Benitez is the former executive director of Self Help Graphics & Art, and remains a consultant for several nonprofit arts organizations. He was a member of El Teatro de la Esperanza and founded his own company, Teatro Café, and the Theater for Social Justice Initiative at Plaza de la Raza.
Lois “Toni” McClendon is a community elder and cultural activist, a storyteller in the African American oral tradition, and a longtime peace and social justice activist. Getting her activist “genes” from both her paternal and maternal heart lines, Toni firmly believes in rights and dignity for all.
Graciela I. Sánchez is a founding board member of the San Antonio Lesbian Gay Assembly, the San Antonio Lesbian/Gay Media Project, and ELLAS, a state and local Latina lesbian organization. In 1987 Graciela joined other women in founding the Esperanza Peace and Justice Center, which she still directs.
John Tetpon is a longtime Alaska Native (Iñupiaq) journalist who lives in Anchorage. He won a Pulitzer Prize as a reporter for the series “A People in Peril” published in 1988. In traditional Iñupiaq arts, he is a master walrus ivory, whale bone, and wood carver. He learned how to carve from his father and, in turn, has taught his son.
