The awards, which celebrate the 2008-2009 Off-Broadway and Off-Off Broadway seasons, will be held May 18 at Webster Hall in Manhattan.

Presented by the Village Voice, the annual event will be produced and directed by Eileen Phelan.

Michael Feingold, the chief theatre critic of the Village Voice, will chair the Obie Awards committee. He will be joined by Voice critic Alexis Soloski and six guest judges: Eric Grode, New York Sun; Andy Probst, AmericanTheaterWeb.com; Eisa Davis, actress-playwright and Passing Strange Obie Award winner; Ty Jones, actor-playwright, 2003 Obie Award winner for his performance in The Blacks; Moises Kaufman, playwright-director and 2004 Obie Award winner for his direction of I Am My Own Wife; and Chay Yew, playwright-director and 2007 Obie Award winner for his direction of Durango. Probst will also serve as secretary to the committee.

The Obie Awards were created in 1955 by Jerry Tallmer. Past recipients include Dustin Hoffman, Meryl Streep, William Hurt, Morgan Freeman, Mos Def, Amy Irving, Kevin Kline, Nathan Lane, Olympia Dukakis, Robert Duvall, Kevin Bacon, Alec Baldwin, Kathy Bates, James Earl Jones, Felicity Huffman and Harvey Fierstein, among others.

Plimpton won an Obie in 2002 for her performance in Hobson's Choice. Breaker was a 2008 Obie winner for his work in the ensemble cast of Passing Strange.

A "Creative Block and Obies After Party" — featuring burlesque, digital art, performance art, dance and fiber arts from New York's creative emerging artists and avant-garde underground — will be held in tandem with the awards ceremony. Michael Musto will host. Tickets, priced $15, for "Creative Block" will go on sale April 1.

For more information visit www.villiagevoice.com/obies.