The Academy of the Arts,
Guild Hall of East Hampton's prestigious society, which for the last 20 years has recognized lifetime achievement in the literary, visual, and performing arts and philanthropy, will present a Special Lifetime Achievement Patron of the Arts Award for leadership and philanthropic endeavors to Stephen A. Schwarzman at the Academy's 21st Annual Lifetime Achievement Awards Gala, Monday March 13, 2006 at the Rainbow Room in New York City, announced
Roy Furman,
Guild Hall Trustee and President of the Academy of the Arts. Six-time MAC Award winner comedienne Angela LaGreca of ABC's The View will once again emcee.
A prominent businessman and philanthropist Stephen A. Schwarzman is Chairman, CEO and co-founder of The Blackstone Group, Chairman of the Board of The
John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts and serves on the Boards of numerous arts and business organizations.
The gala will not only pay tribute to this year's honoree but also to the over 70 artists who have been singled out over the past 20 years for sustained excellence in their field -- a veritable who's who in arts and letters. Members of an extraordinary collective of talent on the East End, previous award recipients include such luminaries as
Edward Albee,
Alan Alda, Lauren Bacall,
Alec Baldwin, Louis Begley,
Chuck Close, Cy Coleman,
Willem de Kooning,
Eric Fischl, Jane Freilicher,
April Gornik,
Sheldon Harnick,
Sidney Lumet,
Itzhak Perlman, Marshall Rose,
Cindy Sherman,
Steven Spielberg, Robert A. M. Stern,
Elaine Stritch,
Kurt Vonnegut, and Mort Zuckerman.
The Gala will officially kick off Guild Hall's 75th Anniversary, "Celebrating Creativity." Established in 1931, Guild Hall is the premiere cultural center in the region. Its primary focus is to inform, inspire and enrich its diverse audiences by presenting programs of the highest quality in the visual and performing arts, to collaborate with artists of eastern Long Island, and to provide a meeting place for the entire community.
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Roy Furman, Guild Hall Trustee and President of the Academy
of the Arts. |
Mr. Furman noted, "It's very exciting to be celebrating Guild Hall's 75th Anniversary and in honor we are making a change in the format this year that will enable us to recognize all 70 past honorees of the lifetime achievement awards who are so deserving and so talented". Many of the previous recipients will be in attendance including Louis Begley, Lukas Foss, Jane Freilicher, Kurt Vonnegut, and Jane Wilson. An additional highlight of the evening will be a special performance by two-time Tony Award Winner and Kennedy Center honoree the incomparable
Chita Rivera.
Under the dynamic leadership of Gala Co-Chairs
Kelly Killoren Bensimon, Luly Duke, Frieda Furman, Patti Kenner, Ninah Lynne, Ellen Marcus, Cheryl S. Minikes, Hannah Pakula,
Pam Pantzer, Bonnie Reiss, Laura Ross, Peggy Schleiff,
Barbara Slifka, Leila Straus, Claude Wasserstein, and Coke Anne Wilcox, the gathering will be a festive celebration of world-class artistic talent. Journal Co-Chairs are Renee Steinberg and Judy Springer.
The Art Deco splendor of the Rainbow Room, with its sweeping vistas of New York, is the ideal setting for the gala. Cocktails begin at 6:30 p.m., dinner at 7:30 p.m. with the awards ceremony and performance to follow. Individual tickets for the gala are $3,500, $2,500 and $1,500. Tables of 10 are $35,000, $25,000 and $15,000. To purchase tickets contact Carole Dioguardi, Director of Development Guild Hall of East Hampton, 631-324-0806 or email
carole@guildhall.org. For further information go to –
www.guildhall.org.
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Stephen A. Schwarzman |
About Stephen A. Schwarzman
Lifetime Achievement Award winner for Leadership and Philanthropic Endeavors, Stephen A. Schwarzman is Chairman, CEO and co-founder of The Blackstone Group. He has been involved in all phases of the firm's development since it's founding in 1985. Mr. Schwarzman began his career at Lehman Brothers, where he was elected Managing Director in 1978 at the age of 31. He was engaged principally in the firm's mergers and acquisitions business from 1977 to 1984, and served as Chairman of the firm's Mergers & Acquisitions Committee in 1983 and 1984.
Mr. Schwarzman is Chairman of the Board of The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. He is also a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and is on the boards of various organizations, including the New York Public Library, the New York City Ballet, the Film Society of Lincoln Center, the Harvard Business School Visiting Committee, the JP Morgan Chase National Advisory Board and the New York City Partnership Board of Directors. Mr. Schwarzman is also a Trustee of The Frick Collection in New York City. Mr. Schwarzman holds a BA from Yale University and an MBA from Harvard Business School. He has served as an adjunct professor at the Yale School of Management.
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Chita Rivera |
About Chita Rivera
Entertainment for the evening will be presented by living theater legend, Chita Rivera; star of the current Broadway hit Chita Rivera: A Dancer's Life who will perform highlights from her celebrated appearance at Feinstein's at The Regency.
Universally regarded as one of America's national treasures, Chita Rivera is Broadway's most accomplished and versatile dancer/actress/singer. In 2002, she was the first Hispanic woman to receive the prestigious Kennedy Center Honors Award, recognizing her contributions to U.S. culture. Rivera received two Tony Awards and six additional nominations. She received her first Tony in 1984 for her role in The Rink and her second for Best Leading Actress in a Musical in 1993 for her role in The Kiss of the Spider Woman.
About Guild Hall
Guild Hall opened to the public in the summer of 1931 as a gift of philanthropist Mrs. Lorenzo E. Woodhouse. Designed by architects Aymar Embury II and his wife, landscape architect Ruth Dean, Guild Hall provided East Hampton with an art gallery, a theater and meeting place – the cultural center in the center of culture. The East End of Long Island is a unique region that has attracted many diversely talented people such as artists, writers, musicians, actors, and directors over the years. They search for and find inspiration in the natural beauty of the landscape, the magnificent light and the endless beaches.
Long Island, with close proximity to New York City, became a popular tourist destination with the onset of the Long Island Railroad in the late 19th century. The L.I.R.R. was very active in marketing the charms of the region by distributing thousands of brochures and leaflets. In the 1870s, Hudson River School painters portrayed the white sand beaches of eastern Long Island.
Winslow Homer came to visit in 1872 and, in 1878, a group of New York artists known as the Tile Club traveled to the East End and visited several of its small villages including East Hampton.
Thomas Moran and his family settled permanently in 1884. His home and studio became the center of life for artists who visited the village.
In the teens, twenties and thirties many artists including Guy Pene du Bois and George Bellows, visited the area. Later after WWII the Surrealists, aided by artist and philanthropist Gerald Murphy, were welcomed guests. They were followed by the Abstract Expressionist artists
Jackson Pollock,
Lee Krasner and Willem de Kooning, Pop artists
Roy Lichtenstein, James Rosenquist and
Andy Warhol, Photo Realists
Audrey Flack and Chuck Close, 80's and 90's Neo-expressionist artists Eric Fischl, David Salle and
Julian Schnabel as well as many contemporary artists today such as
Ross Bleckner,
Donald Sultan, and April Gornik. These artist-residents continue to make the East End the country's foremost art colony.
In 1931, when Mrs. Lorenzo E. Woodhouse dedicated Guild Hall as a cultural center for the community, The New York Times noted that Howard Russell Butler's portrait of Thomas Moran, on exhibit in the galleries, was not a loan, but an acquisition. "It marks the beginning of a permanent art collection which it proposed to build up in Guild Hall," the newspaper explained. From this beginning 75 years ago, the holdings have grown significantly in size and scope. In the early 1960's, the collection began to focus on the artists who have lived and worked in the region, including some of the country's most celebrated painters, sculptors, photographers and graphic artists. It was not until 1970 when the Dewey Wing, with climate-controlled art storage and processing facilities, was added that the collecting started in earnest. In 1973 the museum received the distinction of being accredited by the American Association of Museums. Today, the holdings of 19th, 20th and 21st Century art number some 1900 objects which include paintings, sculpture, prints, watercolors, photographs and drawings by internationally renowned artists. The museum continues to acquire works by donation and acquisition.
The exhibition space consists of four galleries: Moran, Woodhouse, Spiga and Leidy; as well as the Ruth Dean Garden and the Myrtle Shepherd Sculpture Garden. The year-round schedule of changing exhibitions includes both one-person and group shows, an annual Members Exhibition and the Student Arts Festival.
Guild Hall is also home to the historic John Drew Theater, with a gorgeous jewel box proscenium stage that has hosted a veritable who's who of 20th Century theatrical luminaries since its inception in 1931. John Drew, a celebrated thespian, bon vivant and reigning lion of the Barrymore clan, chose East Hampton as his summer getaway. John Drew so charmed the citizens of the town that they dedicated the theater posthumously in his honor. The Theater enchants audiences with its octagonal shape and blue and white striped tent-like ceiling that sweeps up to a chandelier of glass balloons. But it's not just the interior that captivates audiences; it is the magic of what happens on the stage.
The list of distinguished artists whose work has graced the stage of the John Drew Theater is a veritable who's who of arts and letters: great actors including Cornelia Otis Skinner, Colleen Dewhurst, Helen Hayes, Chita Rivera, Alan Alda, Douglas Fairbanks Jr., Joan Fontaine,
Mercedes Ruehl, Dina Merrill,
Eli Wallach and
Anne Jackson; gifted writers such as Edward Albee,
Wendy Wasserstein, Thornton Wilder,
Joe Pintauro,
Terrence McNally, Kurt Vonnegut, Kenneth and
Judith Jamison; brilliant directors including Peter Stone, Frank Perry,
Bob Fosse,
Robert Wilson, Alan Pakula, Sidney Lumet ; diverse music world greats such as
Phillip Glass, Tom Paxton, Carlos Montoya,
Michael Feinstein,
Earl Klugh, Regina Carter and Andrea Marcovicci and unique evenings with comedienne Joy Behar and performance artist
Laurie Anderson. Like the Guild Hall Museum, the John Drew Theater will continue to ignite the imagination, curiosity and wonder of our community, moving us forward into a new and exciting chapter of our history.
About The Academy of the Arts
Because of the wealth of talent on the East End of Long Island, in 1985 the Board of Trustees of Guild Hall initiated a program of awards in recognition of lifetime achievement in the arts. A distinguished jury convened. Members included Roy Lichtenstein, Frank Perry, Joseph F. Cullman 3rd,
Peter Jennings, Sidney Gruson, Wilfred Sheed, Elaine Steinbeck, Henry Geldzahler and Sherrye Henry. This group elected Kurt Vonnegut, Willem de Kooning and Alan Alda to receive the first "Medals of Merit" for excellence in the literary, visual and performing arts. In 1986, the Academy of the Arts was formed, using as its nucleus the original jury and the 1985 awardees. All subsequent award recipients are selected by ballot by the entire Academy membership. As well, the membership has grown to over 200, a truly incredible assemblage of internationally recognized artists emanating from a relatively small community.
Guild Hall at Seventy-Five: Celebrating Creativity
In celebrating 75 years of creativity, the 21st Academy of the Arts Lifetime Achievement Awards is the natural first milestone. Though created a half-century after Guild Hall's founding, The Academy of the Arts annual recognition of achievement provides the ideal opportunity to look back at the rich history and unique reputation of the artistic community.
Guild Hall's 75th Anniversary Year will present many other groundbreaking historic moments-- the opening of the new Education Center; the exhibitions at the Museum, including "Guild Hall Collects" and "The Barrymores: Hollywood's First Family"; the third Cabaret Convention and the John Drew Theater production of Persephone by Robert Wilson. The Anniversary Weekend Activities August 11-13 will also include the Annual Summer Gala, this year featuring dancing to the
Peter Duchin Orchestra, and a fun filled community day.
