The 2024 New York Independent Theater Honorary Award Submissions are closed.

Recipients will be announced this summer in advance of an Awards Ceremony in September. Thank you for participating!

The NYIT Honorary Awards are a celebration of the creativity, resiliency, and artistic excellence of the indie theater community.

You can read more about the 2023 Honorary Award Recipients here!

Every year, our Honorary Awards Committee accepts open submissions for our Honorary Awards from YOU, the Indie Theater community. Once the community has made their nominations and submissions close, a select panel of your peers will review the nominations and conduct an anonymous vote to determine the Award Recipients. Nominees may be a person or company you have worked with or admire. You may nominate yourself, your own company or a company in which you are a member or participant. The Award recipients will be celebrated at the 2024 New York Independent Theater Awards Ceremony.

Awards Categories are: The Caffe Cino Award, The Ellen Stewart Award, The (NEW) Everett Quinton Award, The Artistic Achievement Award, The Outstanding Stage Manager Award and The Indie Theater Champion Award.

Nomination forms and award descriptions are below. Please fill out the form, found under each award description, to nominate a worthy candidate for the 2024 NYIT Honorary Awards.

SUBMISSION DEADLINE: March 15th, 2024

THE HONORARY AWARDS

The Caffe Cino Fellowship Award

The Caffe Cino Fellowship Award honors the revolutionary Caffe Cino, founded by Joe Cino in 1958, which provided a home for many ground-breaking OOB/Indie playwrights, actors and directors, well before "off-off-Broadway" existed. The award is presented to an OOB/Indie theater company that consistently produces outstanding work. This award includes a grant of $1000 to be used towards a current or future OOB/Indie production. For the Caffe Cino Fellowship, the Committee is looking for a company with a proven track record of producing indie theater, that will benefit from the Fellowship, and that is dedicated to continuing to produce in the indie theater community.

This award focuses on high quality and continuous artistic productions from an organization. To nominate an individual or group for LEADERSHIP, see the Ellen Stewart Award. To nominate person or group for SERVICE to the Indie community, see the Indie Theater Champion Award. To nominate an individual for their ARTISTIC ACHIEVEMENT, see the Artistic Achievement Award.

The Ellen Stewart Award

The Ellen Stewart Award is presented to an individual or organization demonstrating a significant contribution to the Off-Off-Broadway/Indie Theater community through leadership. Named after Ellen Stewart, founder and artistic director of La Mama and a champion of OOB/Indie theater artists for decades, the award is given to individuals and/or organizations that have provided leadership or support to the Independent Theater community at large.

This award focuses on LEADERSHIP from an individual or organization. To nominate an organization for high quality and continuous artistic productions, see the CAFFE CINO Award. To nominate person or group for SERVICE to the Indie community, see the Indie Theater Champion Award. To nominate an individual for their ARTISTIC ACHIEVEMENT, see the Artistic Achievement Award.

The Everett Quinton Award (NEW!)

This NEW award, named in honor of the legendary theater maker and leader of the Ridiculous Theatrical Company Everett Quinton, will be presented to an Indie Theater creator of any theatrical discipline. This is an opportunity to honor the designers, writers, producers, directors, performers and administrators that bring their considerable talents to the theatrical table. The nominee should be early-to-mid career (however that nominee defines it), LGBTQ+ or has demonstrated ally-ship to that community, and whose work embodies the radical spirit of The Ridiculous through a joyful subversion of the established theatrical canon.

The Artistic Achievement Award

The Artistic Achievement Award is given to an individual who has made a significant ARTISTIC contribution to the Indie/Off-Off-Broadway community. This can be connected to a sustained contribution or a single artistic achievement that made a noteworthy impact. The nominee’s achievements, past or present, should have a current and continued influence on our community.

This award focuses on ARTISTIC ACHIEVEMENT by an individual. To nominate an individual or group for LEADERSHIP, see the Ellen Stewart Award. To nominate person or group for SERVICE to the Indie community, see the Indie Theater Champion Award. To nominate an organization for high quality and continuous artistic productions, see the CAFFE CINO Award.

The Outstanding Stage Manager Award

The Outstanding Stage Manager Award honors the anchor of theater productions - stage managers. First to arrive and last to leave, stage managers are the living link between artistic conception and practical implementation. This award is given to stage managers of OOB/Indie theater productions who have been a part of a production for the vast majority of that production's timeline - from rehearsal to closing. To be eligible, nominees must have Stage Managed at least one production that qualifies as an eligible Indie Theater production within the last year. Eligible productions range from single performance events to full showcase productions, from conventional theaters to "virtual" stages and non-traditional spaces, produced within the five boroughs of NYC from January 1st, 2023 to March 1st, 2024.

Nominees may be union or non-union.

The Indie Theater Champion Award

The Indie Theater Champion Award is given to an individual, group, or business that advances the Indie theater community through activism, advocacy or service. Whether they are Indie Theater artists themselves who serve the larger populace or they helped theater makers within the Indie Theater Community, these Champions created a positive impact in ways both large and small. We’re celebrating those who expand the definition of what it means to be in community through radical acts of service; from sharing grants and resources to volunteerism, from large-scale advocacy to going above and beyond to uplift individuals, or to using their artistry to bring attention to issues that affect all of us. Nominees can be business, individuals, or organizations.

This award focuses on ACTIVISM or SERVICE from an individual or organization. To nominate an organization for high quality and continuous artistic productions, see the Caffe Cino Award. To nominate a person or group for LEADERSHIP to the Indie community, see the Ellen Stewart Award. To nominate an individual for their ARTISTIC ACHIEVEMENT, see the Artistic Achievement Award.

THE HONORARY AWARD COMMITTEE MEMBERS

The membership of the Honorary Awards Committee is comprised of independent theater artists who know, love, and understand what it takes to make theater in New York City outside the boundaries of the commercial world. They have many things in common: a love for theater, a burning to make a difference, a recognition of the special obstacles independent artists face, and a desire to see those artists celebrated for what they achieve. We could never make the New York Independent Theater Awards happen without them.

Members of the past year’s 2023 Honorary Awards Committee:

Carolina Arboleda R.
Melody Bates
P. Tyler Britt
Heather E. Cunningham
Emily Rainbow Davis
Meg Dowling
Alec Duffy
Ben Dworken
Spencer Gonzalez
Michael Hagins
Antonio Harris II
Joan Kane
Debra Khan-Bey
John Lampe
Ralph Lewis
Lulu Lolo
Aljandra Maldonado Morales
Peter Michael Marino
Bree O'Connor
Maryanne Olson
Katie Palmer
Nicky Paraiso
Al Parker
Dan Renkin
John Scott-Richardson
Shetal Shah
Amanda Spooner
Akia Squitieri
Kathleen Warnock
Janelle Zapata Castellano

About the NYIT Awards

The New York Independent Theater Awards, originally known as the New York Innovative Theatre Awards, was created in 2004 by Shay Gines, Jason Bowcutt and Nick Micozzi to recognize the work of NYC’s Independent theater artists and provide meeting grounds for those artists to get to know one another. As our community has grown and changed along with our industry, NYITA has grown with it, never changing its mission, but continually updating the ways that mission is fulfilled. Over the last several years, NYC’s independent theater community has reaffirmed its commitment to the connection between arts and social justice. This paved the way for NYITA to merge with the League of Independent Theater - the only not-for-profit advocacy organization serving our community, in 2022.

Traditionally, NYITA has presented yearly awards for productions and individual artists, as well as Honorary Awards for individuals and organizations who have contributed to the community in a larger way. However the pandemic made it impossible to present the production awards over the last several years. LIT is continuing to work toward thoughtfully re-opening the production awards in the years to come, and will host a series of Listening Sessions throughout the coming years to gather consensus on an emerging vision for the future of the New York Independent Theater Awards.