Off Broadway Obie Awards To Ditch Annual Ceremony In Favor Of Winner Grants, Ending 68-Year Tradition / by David Hwang

Heidi Schreck accepting a 2019 Obie for 'What The Constitution Means To Me'

Dia Dipasupil/Getty Images for the 2019 Obie Awards.

The Obie Awards, the venerable honors for outstanding Off Broadway and Off Off Broadway productions, is doing away with its annual ceremony and will instead use the funds to provide winners with grants ranging from $1,000-$5,000.

Heather Hitchens, the president and CEO of the American Theatre Wing, which presents the Obies, called the grants a new path forward for the awards, saying the move “genuinely reflects the ethos of the Awards as well as the Off & Off Off Broadway movements – which is to continuously evolve and meet the moment.”

Select winners of this year’s 67th Obie Awards will be announced Saturday on New York’s Spectrum News NY1 as a special presentation of the channel’s On Stage program hosted by Frank DiLella. The special airs at 7:30 p.m./ET.

Read more at Deadline.