The Acting Company is set to celebrate a half century of its impact on the American theatre with its 50th Anniversary Gala June 13 at New York City's Capitale.
The evening will include a 50th anniversary performance with notable alumni including Duane Boutté, Jimonn Cole, Keith David, Stephen DeRosa, Harriet Harris, Ezra Knight, JD Mollison, Mary Lou Rosato, Roslyn Ruff, Derek Smith, and Henry Stram, with an introduction by Tony-winning director Jack O’Brien and direction by former Artistic Director Ian Belknap.
Peter Darrow, Senior Counsel at the law firm Cleary Gottlieb, Steen and Hamilton, will receive the Joan M. Warburg Civic Engagement Award for his dedication to philanthropic and civic causes in the arts and other areas. Darrow is currently chair of the Board of Trustees of The CUNY Graduate Center Foundation, vice chair of the Ronald O. Perelman Performing Arts Center at the World Trade Center, and a trustee of BRIC Community Media in Brooklyn.
Previous Warburg Award recipients include Harry Belafonte, Tom Viola, Abigail Disney, Gerald Schoenfeld, Phyllis Newman, Barbara Fleischman, the Honorable Thomas Kean, Barbaralee Diamonstein-Spielvogel, and Ambassador Carl Spielvogel, among others.
The Acting Company was founded in 1972 and is the recipient of the 2003 Tony Award for Excellence in the Theatre. It has launched the careers of nearly 500 actors and has commissioned new works from early career writers and Tony- and Pulitzer-winning playwrights alike. The company's yearly in-school programs reach over 30,000 students nationwide.
The Acting Company's 2022-2023 touring and New York season will include a world-premiere adaptation of Alexandré Dumas' The Three Musketeers by Kirsten Childs under the direction of Artistic Director Kent Gash, and William Shakespeare's Romeo & Juliet in repertory, directed by Leah C. Gardiner.
