November 11, 2024
Lauderhill Performing Arts Center | CarbonellAwards.org
By Gary Schweikhart
Gary Schweikhart, board president of the Carbonell Awards, South Florida’s Theater & Arts Honors, has announced the recipients of five prestigious Special Awards that will be presented at the Carbonell Awards Ceremony on Monday, November 11, 2024, at the Lauderhill Performing Arts Center.
“While we will be honoring 20 specific theatre performances, production elements, and shows presented from September 2023 through August 2024, the Carbonell board of directors has voted to also bestow the following Special Awards,” said Schweikhart.
The Vinnette Carroll Award
For significant achievement in advancing the cause of diversity, equality, and inclusion in South Florida theater.
John Pryor
Director and actor John Pryor has been a valued theater professor at Miami-Dade Community College and Florida Memorial College who taught hundreds of students the joys of theater while exposing them to playwrights such as August Wilson, Charles Fuller, Lorraine Hansberry, Samm Art-Williams, and Vinnette Carroll. Pryor has directed more than 100 productions over the last 34 years and has appeared in many as an actor.
The Ruth Foreman Award
Recognizes contributions to South Florida theater development by an individual or group, for singular achievement and/or career contributions.
Marilynn Wick
Founder and CEO of The Wick Theatre & Museum Club
and Costume World, Inc.
Marilynn Wick has dedicated her life to the preservation of theatre history. Her commitment to purchasing, restoring and housing the largest collection of Broadway costumes in the world is a passion that will allow future generations to experience and cherish theatre’s brilliant legacy in a tangible way. Her Costume World houses an incredible collection of 87 original Broadway wardrobes and thousands of theatrical pieces. Her love of theater led her to transform the shuttered Caldwell Theatre in Boca Raton into The Wick Theatre & Museum Club, now celebrating its 11th season of offering both mega-sized musicals and intimate Manhattan-style cabaret.
The Bill Hindman Award
Honoring significant, long-term contributions to the region’s cultural life and onstage career achievement by performing artists based in South Florida.
Carl Waisanen
With an MFA in Acting from the University of Iowa, Carl Waisanen worked as an actor in multiple shows (1776, Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, The Underpants, Funny Girl, and Havana Bourgeois). However, he is best known for the 25 years he served as Production Stage Manager for more than 120 shows at Actors’ Playhouse in Coral Gables. Throughout his long career, he has been a cherished source of both on-stage guidance and back-stage support to everyone in the cast and crew, show after show after show.
The Howard Kleinberg Award
Honoring an individual or organization for contributions to the health and development of the arts in South Florida.
Kermit Christman
Founder & Artistic Producing Director, Palm Beach Shakespeare Festival
Kermit Christman has dedicated his life to professional theater, devoting the past 35 years to creating and running the Palm Beach Shakespeare Festival. Starting in 1989, his dream was realized when he welcomed 10,000 visitors to Carlin Park for the inaugural two-week run of the annual Shakespeare by the Sea, which offers free professional theater for year-round residents, fills the end-of-season cultural void, and provides paid work each summer for actors and technicians.
The Bill von Maurer Award for Theatrical Excellence
Honoring a theater company that exemplifies excellence for the totality of its programming: productions, educational outreach, developmental programs, and audiences served.
Area Stage
Now celebrating its 35th anniversary, Area Stage is an award-winning theatre organization founded by John & Maria Rodaz that offers world-class professional productions and a vibrant conservatory program. In 2008, the company established a professional-level conservatory program in addition to maintaining a full season of professional productions, concerts, and community events. In 2014, the Inclusion Theatre Project (ITP) was established, a life-changing program for individuals with developmental and intellectual disabilities. In 2020, Area Stage moved to The Shops at Sunset Place. Its current headquarters, built from the ground up for its needs, host state-of-the-art dance and voice studios and a black box theatre. Under the visionary leadership of current Artistic Director Giancarlo Rodaz, the critically acclaimed Area Stage has undergone a transformative phase, embracing immersive productions as a means to elevate storytelling, forcing multi-generational, multicultural audiences to rekindle new relationships with classic tales.
In July, the Carbonell Awards announced the recipient of its best known Special Award:
The George Abbott Award
for Outstanding Achievement in the Arts
Nilo Cruz
Cuban American Nilo Cruz gained national prominence in 2003 when he won the Pulitzer Prize for drama for his play Anna in the Tropics, a Depression-era tale about migrant Cubans working in a Tampa cigar factory, for which he also received a Steinberg Award and Tony Award nomination. He has become known for his ability to successfully weave strains of magical realism and other literary traditions into his works. His plays include A Park in Our House; Two Sisters and a Piano; A Bicycle Country; Hortensia and the Museum of Dreams; Lorca in a Green Dress; Hurricane; Sotto Voce; Bathing in Moonlight; Hotel Desiderium; Kisses through the Glass; and Thirst on Water Street. His work has been seen at numerous theaters throughout the country and around the world.
The Carbonell Awards Ceremony on November 11 is being produced by celebrated playwright, actor, and designer Michael McKeever and Stuart Meltzer, the founding artistic director of Zoetic Stage—both of whom have won multiple Carbonell Awards and previously produced and directed numerous Carbonell Ceremonies. Caryl Fantel is returning as Music Director.
Sponsors of the 47th Annual Carbonell Awards include the Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts, Aventura Arts & Cultural Center, Broward Center for the Performing Arts, Broward Cultural Division, Carbonell Sculptures Ltd., Cultural Council for Palm Beach County, Donald M. Ephraim Sun & Stars International Film Festival presented by MorseLife Health System, John Knox Village, Kravis Center for the Performing Arts, Lauderhill Performing Arts Center, Miami-Dade County Auditorium, The Dennis C. Moss Center (formerly The South Miami-Dade Cultural Arts Center), OutClique Magazine, South Florida Theater Magazine, South Florida Theatre League, Mark Traverso & Conor Walton, and Donald R. Walters, P.A.
About The Carbonell Awards
The Carbonell Awards fosters the artistic growth of professional theater in South Florida by celebrating the excellence and diversity of our theater artists, providing scholarships, and building audience appreciation and civic pride by highlighting achievements of our theater community. More than 20 professional theater companies in Broward, Miami-Dade and Palm Beach Counties participate in the awards process every year. The Carbonell Awards also celebrate the accomplishments of local artistic leaders by presenting various Special Awards.
Along with New York’s Drama Desk and Chicago’s Joseph Jefferson Awards, the Carbonell Awards are among the nation’s oldest regional arts awards and predate others, including Washington, D.C.’s Helen Hayes Awards. The Carbonell Awards are named after the internationally renowned sculptor Manuel Carbonell, who designed the signature solid bronze and marble award given annually to Carbonell Award winners. Over the last 45 years, the Carbonell family has donated more than $250,000 in awards. For more information, please visit www.carbonellawards.org.
