Marian Seldes and Alan Ayckbourn to Receive 2010 Tony Awards for Lifetime Achievement

Legendary actress Marian Seldes and British playwright Sir Alan Ayckbourn will receive 2010 Tony Awards for Lifetime Achievement in the Theatre. In addition, David Hyde Pierce has been awarded the Isabelle Stevenson Award for his work in the fight against Alzheimer’s disease, and 2010 Tony Honors will be given to the Alliance of Resident Theatres New York, B. H. Barry and Tom Viola.

Seldes is a five-time Tony Award nominee who won the award in 1967 for A Delicate Balance, the first of many collaborations with playwright Edward Albee. She made her Broadway debut in Medea in 1947 and most recently co-starred with Angela Lansbury in the 2007 comedy Deuce. She has taught drama at Juilliard and Fordham.

Ayckbourn has written more than 74 full length plays, including the The Norman Conquests, which won the Best Revival Tony in 2009. He has also directed more than 300 plays. From 1972 to 2009, he served as Artistic Director of the Stephen Joseph Theatre, Scarborough, where the majority of his work continues to be premiered.

Pierce, whose recent Broadway credits include Accent on Youth and a Tony-winning performance in Curtains, began his support for the Alzheimer’s Association in the early 1990s and now serves as an honorary National Board Member. Over the years he has regularly visited Washington, D.C. to meet with congressional leaders to advocate for increased investment in Alzheimer's research.

The Tony Honors for Excellence in the Theatre were established in 1990 and are awarded annually to institutions, individuals and/or organizations that have demonstrated extraordinary achievement in theater but are not eligible in any of the established Tony Award categories.

Tony Honors winner A.R.T./New York assists its nearly 300 member theaters in managing their companies effectively and has been a leader in meeting needs of the off-Broadway and off-off-Broadway community. B. H. Barry pioneered the teaching of stage combat and has amassed Broadway credits range from Frankenstein (1981) to Dividing the Estate (2008). Viola is the Executive Director of Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS (BC/EFA), the nation's leading industry-based not-for-profit AIDS fundraising and grant-making organization.