Collaboration Award Gala History - 2013

The Collaboration Award: Women Working With Women is designed to encourage professional women in the arts and media to work collaboratively with women from other arts and media specializations on the creation of new work. The award honors successful collaborations among women from different specializations in the arts and media.

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Collaboration Award Gala

Past Events

2013 Collaboration Awards 

COLLABORATION AWARD WINNER:
JANEANE FROM DES MOINES
Jane Edith Wilson & Grace Lee

HONORED FINALIST:
SILENT WITNESSES
Stephanie Satie & Anita Khanzadian

HONORABLE MENTION:
THE ISLAND OF NO TOMORROWS
Fengar Gael & Lorca Peress

Event
October 24, 2013
at Engelman Recital Hall of Baruch Performing Arts Center
Keynote Speaker:
MADELEINE SMITHBERG
(co-creator of THE DAILY SHOW, Emmy and Peabody Award winner)
Honored Guests
Pat Addiss, Producer (BUYER & CELLAR, BECOMING DR. RUTH, and more)Rebecca Damon, SAG-AFTRA New York Vice President
Sherry Eaker, Producer (past Editor of Backstage)
Mari Lyn Henry (past Casting Director at ABC/NY, author of "How To Be a Working Actor")
Adriana Shaw, HerFlix
Michelle Sokolowski, SDC Membership Coordinator

Awards Sponsors
Alice Christy
Yvonne Curry
Sherry Eaker
Elsa Rael

Raffle Sponsors
Pat Addiss, producer of BECOMING DR. RUTH (tickets)
Mario BadescuFarrow & Ball
Forever Flawless
Arlene GeigerAndrea Giardino
Pamela's Potions Eve Pearl Cosmetics
M. Kilburg Reedy, producer of PETER AND THE STARCATCHER (tickets)
Robin Rice Designs
Stepping Out Studios 

2011 Collaboration Awards
Winners
Women in the Arts & Media Coalition is proud to announce the winners of its internationally recognized Collaboration Award. The award honors successful collaborations among women from different specializations in the arts and media. The winners are Stefanie Zadravec (playwright - Dramatists Guild) and Daniella Topol (director - Stage Directors and Choreographers) for their collaboration on The Electric Baby. The awards were presented at the Gershwin Hotel (7 E. 27th Street) on Monday, March 21st at 6pm.

The Electric Baby was chosen from the work of more than one hundred artists from across the nation and abroad to receive the $1000 award. Topol and Zadravec began their collaboration last May and developed it further at Theater of the First Amendment in Washington, D.C. They will continue to work together on a staged reading at The Playwrights Realm's INK'd series set for June 13th. The Electric Baby is a current semi-finalist for the Eugene O'Neill Center's National Playwrights conference, a finalist for Play Penn's New Play Development Conference in Philadelphia, and is slated for a full production in 2012 at the Quantum Theater in Pittsburgh.

Two additional projects have been designated as "Honored Finalists," which will receive a $100 award: Slashes of Light, collaborators Judy Tate and Melissa Maxwell, and Thirst, collaborators Anita Chandwaney and MEH Lewis.

Projects which have earned "Honorable Mention" are: Appetite, collaborators Arden Kass and Lorca Peress; Communicate Sober, collaborators Jan Buttram and Bara Swain; Seven, collaborators Anna Deavere Smith, Carol Mack, Catherine Filoux, Gail Kriegel, Paula Cizmar, Ruth Margraff and Susan Yankowitz; Orange Chicken, a screenplay from collaborators Nina Braddock and Katy Frame; and Sila, collaborators Chantal Bilodeau and Seema Sueko.

Speakers
Marcy and Zina are the first women ever honored as recipients of the Fred Ebb Award for Musical Theatre Songwriting. They have also been nominated for 2009 Drama Desk Awards for Outstanding Lyrics and Music for Dear Edwina and have earned Lucille Lortel Award nominations for their Junie B.Jones.

Honored GuestsAndrew Frank, Associate Producer, Lombardi
Cyrena Esposito, Associate Producer, Memphis
Paul J. Michael, Executive Director, The Network
Lawrence Feeney, Producer, theAtrainplays

Sponsors
We would like to thank the following individuals and organizations for making this event possible:

Screen Actors Guild
Sherry Eaker
The Rehearsal Club & Gale Patron
Yvonne Curry

Raffle Sponsors 
Andrea Giardino Catering
Andrew Frank
Eve Pearl Cosmetics
Farrow & Ball
Hong S. M. Liquor
Jewish Community Fitness Center
Lee Kelley Acting Coach
Mario Badescu
Pamela Allen
Paul J. Michael
Primary Stages
Stepping Out Studios
The Actors Fund
York Theatre

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2008 Collaboration Awards

About
The New York Coalition of Professional Women in the Arts & Media presented its biennial Collaboration Award at a champagne reception at the Gershwin Hotel at 7 East 27th Street, on March 2, 2009. The awards were underwritten by Special Advisor to the Coalition, Sherry Eaker, and Past President, Elsa Rael. The event was hosted by the Coalition Board and its Honorary Artistic Advisors and Colleagues including composer, Nancy Ford, and playwright and performer, Leslie Ayvazian. The event also honored Women's History Month and SWAN Day (Support Women Artists Now, a campaign initiated by the Fund for Women Artists).

Winners
Winners of the $1000 prize were Jennifer Gibbs, author of the play, The Stranger, and director, Kristin Marting. Gibbs based her play on Henrik Ibsen's The Lady From the Sea. Marting and Gibbs plan a multi-media production including film and music.

Runners-up for the award were Elyse Singer and Ruth Margraff for their opera, Wellsprings; Carol Todd and Catherine Eaton for their screenplay, Showers of Happiness; cabaret performers, Melanie Adelman and Ellie Dvorkin for their cabaret musical, Mel and El, This Show Rhymes; and Shirley Lauro and Alexis Greene for their anthology of plays by women: Front Lines: Political Plays by American Women. 

Letter from the Screen Actors Guild
"To our great friends and colleagues of the New York Coalition of Women in the Arts and Media, it is a great pleasure to congratulate the recipients of this year’s Collaboration Awards. Screen Actors Guild has a long-standing practice of fighting discrimination and increasing employment opportunities for women of all ages and look forward to a continued collaborative effort with the Coalition to aggressively advocate diverse hiring practices by producers and their agents. We are proud to be a part of this Coalition as a founding member organization and, on behalf of the Board of Directors and the dedicated staff of Screen Actors Guild, Congratulations to the Coalition Board and it Honorary Artistic Advisors on an extraordinary event and Brava! to all of tonight’s honorees." 

Letter from New York Women in Film and Television
Message from Terry Lawler, Executive Director, New York Women in Film & Television I am very sorry I was not able to attend this very special event celebrating collaboration. Since the art forms we work in are so dependent upon collaboration, and since women make such good collaborators, the Collaboration Awards is a perfect way to celebrate women artists. Congratulations to Jennifer Gibbs and Kristen Marting on your award. Congratulations also to Melanie Adelman & Elie Dvorkin, Shirley Lauro & Alexis Green, Carol Todd & Catherine Eaton, Ruth Margraff & Elyse Singer. And Congratulations to the New York Coalition of Women in the Arts & Media and thank you for the important work you do. 

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2006 Collaboration Awards

About
The New York Coalition of Professional Women in the Arts and Media held "Collaborate! Communicate! Celebrate!" -- the First Collaboration Award Event on September 18, 2006, at the Cherry Lane Theatre, 38 Commerce Street, in Greenwich Village. The event was designed to honor the winners of the Coalition's first Collaboration Award, Women Working With Women. Sherry Eaker, Editor-at-Large of Backstage Magazine, and leslie Shreve, National Co-Chair of the Women's Committees of SAG and AFTRA, collaborated as moderators. The evening feature performances, awards, interviews, networking and a reception.

Winners
The winners of the Collaboration Award were playwright Jennifer Maisel and director Wendy McClellan for the play, Birds. Four other collaborative teams were honored: Jane Comfort and Joan LaBarbara for Fleeting Thoughts; Deepa Purohit & Nandita Shenoy, along with Gita Reddy, for Sahana, (previously called Exile); Sharon Talbot and Janet Gari for First Born, and Sharon Sharth and Pamela Dunlap for Grace.