Stacy Keach, John Hurt, Dame Diana Rigg Receive Bennett Recognition Awards
Award-winning actors Stacy Keach, John Hurt and Dame Diana Rigg were all recent recipients of recognition awards custom designed by Bennett Awards for the Shakespeare Theatre Company (STC). The STC, one of the nation’s leading theatre companies, selected these three performing artists as their 2014 recipients of their William Shakespeare Award for Classical Theatre (the Will Award).
The Will Award is presented each year to an artist or artists who have made a significant contribution to classical theatre in America. Past recipients include Elizabeth McGovern, Annette Bening, Sir Ian McKellen, Kevin Spacey, Jeremy Irons, Dame Judi Dench, Ralph Fiennes, Sir Anthony Hopkins, Dame Maggie Smith, Hal Holbrook, Fiona Shaw, Patrick Stewart, Sam Waterston, F. Murray Abraham, Lynn Redgrave, Christopher Walken, Morgan Freeman, Mel Gibson, Kenneth Branagh, Christopher Plummer, Kevin Kline, the late Joseph Papp, and Shakespeare Theatre Company Artistic Director Michael Kahn.
This is the eighth consecutive year that the STC has used this custom Bennett recognition award for the Will Award. In 2008, Bennett Awards created a new custom sculpture design in the shape of a swan, paying homage to the Shakespeare heritage. These sculpture awards are cast in bronze with a high-polish finish, and then mounted on round black marble bases with personalized engraving of the award and recipient names.
These three deserving recipients received their Will Awards at the STC’s Harmon Center for the Arts Annual Gala, held October 5, 2014 at the Harmon Center for the Arts in Washington DC.
Academy Award-nominee Hurt’s career spans over five decades of work in theater, television, and film, including well-recognized roles in Aliens and Harry Potter. Rigg, a winner of both Tony and Emmy Awards, has had an extensive career in film and theater both in America and Great Britain. She is perhaps best known for her role in the television series The Avengers, and, more recently in the television series Game of Thrones. Keach has had numerous roles spanning theater, film, television, and narration. His work in theater has garnered numerous awards, including the Obie, Drama Desk, and Vernon Rice Awards.
Over the past quarter of a century, the Shakespeare Theatre Company in Washington, D.C., has become “the nation’s foremost Shakespeare company” (Wall Street Journal) and the “region’s most dynamic theatre” (The Washington Post), and received more Helen Hayes Awards for producing than any other theatre. Under the leadership of Artistic Director Michael Kahn, STC has grown from its residence at the Folger Shakespeare Library to the Lansburgh Theatre in 1992 to the opening of the brand new Sidney Harman Hall in 2007. More information on the Shakespeare Theatre Company can be found on their website at www.shakespearetheatre.org.