Martha Plimpton and Daniel Breaker to Host 2009 Obie Awards
Tony Award nominees Martha Plimpton and Daniel Breaker are set to co-host the 54th Annual Village Voice Obie Awards. Honoring excellence in off-Broadway and off-off-Broadway during the 2008-2009 season, this year’s ceremony will take place at Webster Hall on May 18. A list of presenters will be released soon.
Plimpton won an Obie in 2002 for her performance in Hobson's Choice. She received Tony Award nominations in the past two seasons for The Coast of Utopia and Top Girls, and recently co-starred as Gladys Bumps in the Roundabout Theatre Company’s Broadway revival of Pal Joey.
Daniel Breaker won an Obie in 2008 for his performance in the ensemble cast of Passing Strange and was nominated for a Tony for the show's Broadway transfer. He’s now appearing on Broadway as Donkey in Shrek the Musical.
For the past half-century, the The Village Voice Obie Awards have honored the best of off Broadway and off-off Broadway. Structured with informal categories that change annually, the Obie Awards recognize persons and productions of excellence. Unlike most theater awards, the Obie Awards have no nominations. In the conviction that creativity is not competitive, judges may give several Obies in each category, and may even invent new categories to reward artistic merit.
The Voice's chief theater critic, Michael Feingold, chairs the Obie Awards committee again this year. His fellow judges include Voice critic Alexis Soloski and six guest judges: Eric Grode, freelance critic and Voice contributor; critic Andy Propst, AmericanTheaterWeb.com, also a frequent Voice contributor; Eisa Davis, actress-playwright, Obie Award winner for her performance last year in Passing Strange, and author of the upcoming Angel’'s Mixtape; Ty Jones, actor-playwright, 2003 Obie Award winner for his performance in The Blacks Classical Theatre of Harlem; Moises Kaufman, playwright-director, 2004 Obie Award winner for his direction of I Am My Own Wife, and author of current Broadway hit 33 Variations; Chay Yew, playwright-director, 2007 Obie Award winner for his direction of Durango Public Theater and this season's Antebellum.
