Lisa Kron Hosts Playwright Horizon 6th Annual Lilly Awards

Playwright Lisa Kron will host The 6th Annual Lilly Awards Ceremony on Monday, June 1 at Playwrights Horizons. Honorees include Chita Rivera and Daryl Roth.

The Lilly Awards will honor two-time Tony Award winner Chita Rivera, currently in "The Visit," with the first-ever Legendary Lilly Award, presented by four-time Tony Award winner Terrence McNally and veteran Broadway producer Daryl Roth of "It Shoulda Been You" will receive the Lilly Lifetime Achievement Award. Guest presenters include Lynn Ahrens, Lynne Meadow, Rebecca Naomi Jones, Jordan Roth, Cusi Cram, Zoe Sarnak, Heidi Schreck, Julia Jordan, and more.

The Lilly Awards will honor the extraordinary contributions made to the American Theater by women, as well as announce the $25,000 Stacey Mindich Prize, which funds a new work by a female playwright, and the Leah Ryan Prize, which awards an annual cash prize to an emerging woman playwright and produces a reading of the winning play in New York City.

Over 100 theater professionals were asked for their nominations for the 2016 honorees. 2015 Lilly Award winners include choreographer and director Graciela Daniele of "The Visit," playwright Lisa D'Amour of "Airline Highway," actor Deirdre O'Connell of "By The Water," founding artistic director of the Musical Theatre Factory Shakina Nayfack, Boo Killebrew, Quincy Tyler Bernstein, and three surprise winners to be announced during the ceremony.

The ceremony will include performances by FIVE PLAY, the sister group of the world-renowned all-female jazz ensemble DIVA, and a special announcement by the Ziegfeld Club. The winners of the Stacey Mindich $25,000 Go-Write-a-Play Prize and the Leah Ryan Prize will also be announced.

And the presentation of the annual Miss Lilly Award, given to the man who has done the most in any given year to make the theater a better place for women, will also be announced.

The Lilly Awards were started in the Spring of 2010 as a way to honor the work of women in the American Theater. The founders of The Lillys are Julia Jordan, Marsha Norman and Theresa Rebeck. The awards are named for Lillian Hellman, a pioneering American playwright who famously said, "You need to write like the devil and act like one too when necessary."

Previous winners who have won the Lilly Award include Mary Rogers, Dominique Morisseau, Kristen Anderson-Lopez, Jeanine Tesori, Liesl Tommy, Kelli O'Hara, Pam MacKinnon, Leigh Silverman, Anne Kauffman, Sarah Ruhl, Kristin Chenoweth, Annie Baker, Susan Stroman, Lynn Ahrens, Tina Fallon, Amy Herzog, Nina Arianda, Diane Paulus, Katori Hall, Tina Howe, Estella Parsons, Lynne Meadow, Ntozake Shange, Jessica Hecht and Lois Smith.

Following the ceremony, guests and honorees will attend a cocktail reception at the West Bank Caf�, 407 West 42nd Street.
The ceremony will be live-streamed on the Lilly Awards website (www.thelillyawards.org) and HowlRound TV (www.Howlround.com/tv). #lillyawards #howlround

The 6th Annual Lilly Awards Ceremony will be presented at 5 p.m. on Monday, June 1 at Playwrights Horizons, 416 West 42nd Street. For information, visit www.thelillyawards.org.