SUMMER 2018
REPORT Laurie Anderson, Robert Hurwitz and Charlie Hull to Receive The Town Hall 2018 Friend of the Arts Award The 97th Annual Town Hall Gala Celebration will be held this year on Sunday, October 21, starting at 4:00 p.m. The event begins with a concert at the Princeton Club in the intimate setting at 4:00pm. The awards presentations, cocktails, and dinner will follow. TheaterWorksUSA co-founder Charles Hull, Nonesuch Records’ long-time president Robert Hurwitz, and multimedia performance artist Laurie Anderson will receive The Town Hall Friends of the Arts Award, which has been presented annually since 1981 to individuals and institutions who, through their talents, efforts, and support of the arts, have contributed to the forward progress of our culture. Admission to the event is by invitation only to our Town Hall Family of Sustaining Members, other contributors and guests. We hope you will join us in honoring Laurie Anderson, Robert Hurwitz and Charlie Hull by becoming a part of the Town Hall Family of Sustaining Members. Becoming a Sustaining Member of The Town Hall is easy and rewarding. See page 7 for details.
Charlie Hull is originally from Vienna, Austria, attended Lehigh University on football and academic scholarships, and graduated with a B.S. in Business Administration. While serving in the U.S. Air Force and stationed in England, he accompanied a fellow officer to an audition of Stalag 17 and wound up scoring his first role in a theatrical production. In 1960, Hull moved to New York and was featured in many TV commercials and off-Broadway productions prior to joining the management team at TheaterWorksUSA. Hull founded TheaterWorksUSA, with Jay Harnick, in 1961. He then became Managing Director in 1969. Under his 39 year tenure, TheaterWorksUSA grew to become America’s largest and foremost Equity theatre for children and family audiences. Its mission is to create imaginative and sophisticated shows that are both entertaining and thought provoking, and to ensure that those shows are accessible to audiences across America. The company has reached over 100 million people in 49 states and Canada, and now performs for over two million young people annually, selecting about ten shows per year from its ever-growing repertoire of 133 plays and musicals.
Hull’s most notable achievements for TheaterWorksUSA include initiating a subscription series in a prestigious off-Broadway theater; and developing a field trip program, initially at Town Hall, and then spreading across the country, reaching millions of kids every year. Hull was also President of the Producers League of Theatre for Young Audiences, President of Producers Association of Children’s Theatre (PACT), and was awarded the Medal of Honor from the Actors’ Fund. TheaterWorksUSA’s honors include a Drama Desk Award, Lucille Lortel Award, the Jonathan Larson Performing Arts Foundation Award, the William M. Dawson Award for Programmatic Excellence given by the Association of Performing Arts Presenters, and the Medal of Honor from the Actors Fund of America. Charlie was also President of the Producers League of Theatre for Young Audiences and President of the Producers Association of Children’s Theatre (PACT). TheaterWorksUSA has a distinguished history of not only providing young audiences with their first taste of the performing arts, but also giving young actors, writers, directors, and designers an early opportunity to work in their field. After almost 40 years, Hull retired from the company in 2000; TheaterWorksUSA is currently under the direction of Barbara Pasternack (Artistic Director) and Michael Harrington (Managing Director). (For more information or to participate: www.twusa.org) 1