NEW YORK CITY: The 44th annual Theater Hall of Fame gala and induction ceremony will be held on Jan. 26 at the Gershwin Theater. This year’s inductees are director/choreographer Susan Stroman, actors F. Murray Abraham, Alvin Epstein and Blythe Danner, former theatre critic Frank Rich, chairman of the Shubert Organization Philip J. Smith, playwright Alfred Uhry and director Marshall W. Mason.
Tony Award winner and previous Hall of Fame inductee Jim Dale will serve as emcee. The special presenters will be Bernadette Peters, Cherry Jones, Andre Bishop, Dana Ivey, Lynne Meadow, John Lee Beatty, Rocco Landesman and Brian Kulick.
The Theater Hall of Fame for Lifetime Achievement in the American Theater was founded in 1971 by James M. Nederlander, Earl Blackwell, L. Arnold Weissberger and Gerard Oestriecher. Prospective inductees must have worked on Broadway for 25 years, with five major credits, or must be an Off-Broadway or regional theatre founder or pioneer.
More than 50 names were placed on the annual inclusion ballot, which was then voted on by the 300 members of the Theater Hall of Fame and American Theater Critics Association.
Last year’s inductees included actors Cherry Jones and Ellen Burstyn, directors Jerry Zaks, George C. Wolfe and Lynne Meadow, producer Cameron Mackintosh, designer David Hays and, posthumously, playwright Lorraine Hansberry.
