The 2005 Founders Award for Contribution to the theatre will be awarded to Donald Seawell, the producer who founded the Denver Center for the Performing Arts.
The inductees are voted on by the American Theater Critics Association and the members of the Theater Hall of Fame. This year's ceremony is set for Jan. 30, 2006, at the Gershwin Theatre and the Grand Salon of the Essex House. Liz Smith will host the 35th anniversary celebration.
John Lithgow, who currently stars in Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, won Tony Awards for his performances in Sweet Smell of Success and The Changing Room. He was also nominated for his roles in Requiem for a Heavyweight, M. Butterfly and Scoundrels.
Sada Thompson won a 1972 Tony Award for her work in Twigs. Among her other Broadway credits are Juno, Tartuffe, Johnny No-Trump, Happy Days and Any Given Day.
A four-time Tony Award winner for his costume designs for Nine, Crazy for You, The Producers and Hairspray, William Ivey Long has also designed the costumes for Lend Me a Tenor, Chicago, Cabaret, The Music Man, A Streetcar Named Desire and La Cage aux Folles. Sir Peter Hall has won Tony Awards for Best Direction for Amadeus and The Homecoming. He was also nominated for his work on An Ideal Husband, Four Baboons Adoring the Sun, The Merchant of Venice, Betrayal, Bedroom Farce, Old Times and The Rope Dancers.
Graciela Daniele is the choreographer and director of the upcoming Broadway production Chita Rivera: The Dancer's Life. She also directed and choreographed Marie Christine, Annie Get Your Gun, Ragtime and Chronicle of a Death Foretold. She is the recipient of ten Tony Award nominations.
Playwright William Gibson won a Tony Award for The Miracle Worker. His other plays include Golda's Balcony, Monday After the Miracle, Golda, A Cry of Players and Two for the Seesaw. He penned the books for the musicals Raggedy Ann and Golden Boy.
Best remembered for her Tony-winning turn as Miss Hannigan in Annie, the late Dorothy Loudon's numerous theatrical credits also include Jerry's Girls, Noises Off, The West Side Waltz, Sweeney Todd, Ballroom, The Women, Three Men on a Horse, The Fig Leaves Are Falling, Noel Coward's Sweet Potato and Nowhere to Go But Up.
In 1998 Ben Edwards received a Special Tony Award for Lifetime Achievement. The late scenic designer was Tony-nominated for his designs for The Iceman Cometh, Medea, A Matter of Gravity, A Moon for the Misbegotten, The Ballad of the Sad Cafe, Jane Eyre, The Dark at the Top of the Stairs, The Waltz of the Toreadors, Someone Waiting, The Ponder Heart and The Honeys.
