Harrington Musical Theatre Award Winners Feted

Posted in News on July 6, 2006

The BMI Foundation, Inc. is proud to announce the winners of the 7th Annual Jerry Harrington Musical Theatre Awards in recognition of outstanding creative achievement in the BMI Lehman Engel Musical Theatre Workshop. BMI's Jean Banks, Director of the Workshop, and Patrick Cook, Artistic Coordinator of the Workshop, presented certificates and cash prizes during a cocktail reception held last month at BMI's New York office.

Workshop Artistic Coordinator Pat Cook (left) and BMI's Jean Banks flank 2006 BMI Foundation/Jerry Harrington Award winners Jim Colleran, Beth Falcone and Justin Warner.

Winners included first year student Carl Danielsen, second year student Jim Colleran, advanced class student Beth Falcone and librettist student Justin Warner. The Foundation also presented its first Shelley Pinz Prize to Joy Son, a member of the Workshop's advanced class.

Shelley Pinz Prize winner Joy Son (center) is congratulated by BMI's Jean Banks and Pat Cook.

Established by Harrington's longtime friend and colleague, BMI executive Evelyn Buckstein, the awards are given each year in Harrington's honor to celebrate the late attorney's lifelong love of musical theater. Over the past seven years, these awards have given early recognition to some of the most talented and promising young musical theatre composers and librettists working in the field today, including the Tony Award-winning writers of Avenue Q, Robert Lopez and Jeff Marx, who received the first Harrington Awards in 2000.

Deemed "the Harvard of musical theatre" by The New York Times, the BMI Lehman Engel Musical Theatre Workshop was founded in 1961 by the late Lehman Engel, dean of American musical theatre, to create a setting where new writers could learn their craft. Included among the prestigious honors the Workshop has received are a special 2006 Drama Desk Award "for nurturing, developing and promoting new talent for the musical theater" and the 2005 Drama League Award for Excellence in Musical Theatre.

The BMI Foundation, Inc. is a not-for-profit corporation founded in 1985 to support the creation, performance, and study of music through awards, scholarships, commissions and grants. Tax-deductible donations to the Foundation come primarily from songwriters, composers and publishers, BMI employees and members of the public with a special interest in music. Because both the Foundation staff and the distinguished members of the Advisory Panel serve without compensation, over 97% of all donations and income are used for charitable grants.  

photos by Fernando Leon

SOURCENews TAGS Foundation Jerry Harrington Musical Theater Award BMI Lehman Engel Musical Theatre Workshop Jim Colleran Patrick Cook Lehman Engel Beth Falcone Fernando Jean Robert Lopez Jeff Marx Joy Son Justin Warner