The Bret Adams and Paul Reisch Foundation is pleased to announce the recipients of their 2023 Idea Awards for Theatre; three categories of grants awarded to adventurous new voices in playwriting and musical theatre, as well the visionary playwrights who have inspired and blazed trails before them.
The 2023 Tooth of Time Distinguished Career Award will be presented to Beth Henley (Crimes of the Heart, The Miss Firecracker Contest). Honoring accomplished playwrights who have created significant, idea-driven works throughout their career, the Tooth of Time Distinguished Career Award is given with a $25,000 prize for the recipient.
Jesse Jae Hoon is the recipient of this year’s Ollie New Play Award. Two Vivace Musical Theatre Awards will be presented; one to Brandy Hoang Collier, Clare Fuyuko Bierman and Erika Ji; and another to Grace McLean. Recognizing emerging talent and original work with ambitious theatrical ideas, both awards are bestowed to each recipient with a $25,000 prize.
Each of the six artists will also receive a unique stone statuette hand carved by Bruce Ostler.
The 2023 Idea Awards for Theatre will be presented on Monday, December 4, 2023, in a private ceremony (by invitation only) at The Players (16 Gramercy Park South, NYC). Entertainment will feature live performances by this year's Vivace Musical Theatre Award winners.
Theatrical Agent Bret Adams and his partner Dr. Paul Reisch loved the theatre with great passion. As a theatrical agent, Bret shepherded the careers of many actors, writers and directors and designers, including Phylicia Rashad, Judy Kaye, Ruby Dee, Ossie Davis, Sherman Helmsley, Anna Maria Alberghetti, Eve Arden, Christine Ebersole, Kathleen Marshall, Jayne Wyman, Andre DeShields, Kathy Bates, Susan H. Schulman, Jack Heifner, Philip McKinley and Robert Harling, among many others. After Bret and Paul’s passing, in 2006 and 2015 respectively, their eponymous foundation was created at their bequest. The Bret Adams and Paul Reisch Foundation champions visionary theatre writers in their creation of expansive, illuminating, and idea-driven theatre. Embracing diversity in all its forms, The Foundation encourages artists with fresh perspectives - particularly those from underrepresented backgrounds - to create idea-driven new plays and musicals reflecting on multivalent themes. Nominations for all three awards are accepted exclusively from The Foundation’s Board of Artistic Advisors. For more information, visit www.BretnPaulFoundation.org.
The Bret Adams and Paul Reisch Foundation created the ‘Idea Awards for Theatre’ to encourage expansive, idea-driven artworks with inherently theatrical ways of illuminating big ideas and concepts,” says Sheilah Rae, V.P. and Board Member of The Bret Adams and Paul Reisch Foundation. “With our financial awards, we are encouraging artists to grapple with and dramatize the big ideas that the world is engaged with. This money will give them needed time and space to explore and write. We are proud to award the Ollie Award for the most ambitious big idea new play, the Vivace Award for a big-idea new musical that makes you want to get up and dance, and the Tooth of Time Award to encourage accomplished artists to continue their personal evolution in examining big ideas. We are giving these Awards to dare these writers to theatricalize something wild and brave.”
"Beth Henley is one of our most important living dramatists and a defining voice of the American South," says Kate Bussert, Executive Director of the BAPR Foundation. “Grace McLean is a truly multi-hyphenate, idea-driven artist who uses all of her skills to amplify her artistic vision and creates work unlike any other. And as we look to the new generation of writers in all disciplines, we are thrilled to support rising playwright Jesse Jae Hoon, whose work critiques systemic injustice with humor and heart, and the emerging musical theatre writing team of Clare Fuyuko Bierman, Brandy Hoang Collier, and Erika Ji, three incisive and intersectional artists redefining the Asian-American theatre canon. We are honored to support these six artists as they create exciting new work.