Obie Award

Please note that the content of this book primarily consists of articles available from Wikipedia or other free sources online. The Obie Awards or Off-Broadway Theater Awards are annual awards bestowed by The Village Voice newspaper to theater artists and groups in New York City. As the Tony Awards cover Broadway productions, the Obies cover off-Broadway and off-off-Broadway productions. (There is an unrelated OBIE Award presented annually by the Outdoor Advertising Association of America for creative excellence in the world of advertising.) The Obie Awards were initiated by Edwin (Ed) Fancher, publisher of the The Village Voice, who handled the financing and business side of the project. They were first given in 1956 under the direction of theater critic Jerry Tallmer. Initially, only off-Broadway productions were eligible; in 1964, off-off-Broadway productions were made eligible. With the exception of the Lifetime Achievement and Best New American Play awards, there are no fixed categories and the winning actors and actresses are in a single category titled performance.