Who: Harry Lennix, Arin Arbus, Anne Bogart, Bill Camp, Will Eno, Simon Godwin, Kathryn Hunter, Taibi Magar, John Douglas Thompson, Awoye Timpo, more
What: Theatre for a New Audience annual spring gala
Where: TFANA online
When: Monday, June 7, free with RSVP, VIP reception 6:30, streaming program 7:30
Why: Theatre for a New Audience was founded by Jeffrey Horowitz in 1979, but it was the company’s 2013 move to its new home in Fort Greene, the Polonsky Shakespeare Center, that rocketed it to a new level. On June 7, TFANA’s annual spring gala will be held live online, celebrating Shakespeare’s birthday; the Bard turned 457 in April. “We are celebrating Shakespeare’s birthday 457 years on because Shakespeare is, of course, never over,” Horowitz said in a statement. “A production of Hamlet ends, but the play doesn’t. Shakespeare’s work keeps getting reinvented. Last year, like so many other plans, our annual spring gala was canceled due to the pandemic. For a while, it was a question: Should we postpone again? But gathering as a TFANA community, even remotely, seemed more important than ever this year — to take stock of what we’ve been through, lost, and accomplished, and to look ahead to the future.”
Among the participants will be such actors, writers, and directors as Arin Arbus, Anne Bogart, Bill Camp, Will Eno, Simon Godwin, Kathryn Hunter, Taibi Magar, John Douglas Thompson, and Awoye Timpo; New York City public teacher Marie Maignan will receive the Samuel H. Scripps Award for Extraordinary Artistic Achievement from US representative Jahana Hayes (D-CT), and Amanda Riegel and the Thompson Family Foundation will be presented with the Life in Art Award. The evening will be emceed by actor and TFANA board member Harry Lennix; the VIP preshow begins at 6:30, followed at 7:30 by the gala. There is also a silent auction that features such items as golf and wine vacations, opera and theater tickets, jewelry, art, pet portraits, and more.