By NoHo – North Hollywood – 02/28/202
[NoHo Arts District, CA] – The Los Angeles Women’s Theatre Festival is back in NoHo celebrating its 31st year of glorious existence and we are ready for it! The 31st Annual Los Angeles Women’s Theatre Festival (LAWTF) will honor eight deserving women for their exceptional career and life achievements in the Opening Night Champagne GALA and Awards Ceremony on March 28.
This year’s theme for the awards ceremony is In Honor Of. The event will be hosted by Hattie Winston and Margaret Avery. The 2024 Los Angeles Women’s Theatre Festival is directed by Jessica Lynn Johnson.
WHEN:
March 28, 2024 at 8:00 pm, preceded by a reception and Red Carpet at 6:30 pm
WHERE:
Lankershim Arts Center
5108 Lankershim Blvd., North Hollywood, CA 91601
TICKETS:
Tickets to the March 28 GALA are $60 each or $100 a pair (includes reception). Tickets to each of the weekend’s other five shows are $25 for early birds (through March 10) and $30 thereafter. A VIP all-access pass for the entire weekend is $150.
Reservations will be available at (818) 760-0408 or go to http://www.lawtf.org. To join and follow LAWTF on Facebook and other social media platforms, click on their links at http://www.lawtf.org.
THE HONOREES
The recipient this year for the posthumous Infinity Award, memorializing exceptional achievements of a theatre artist, is Shirley Jo Finney.
Shirley Jo Finney was born in Merced, California and received an M.F.A. in Theatre Arts at UCLA. She was the first African-American in that Master’s Degree Program. She achieved early success as an actor, starring as her friend, Olympic champion Wilma Rudolph, in the NBC television movie Wilma. She also appeared in guest roles in episodic television (Lou Grant, Hill Street Blues, Amen) and several feature films before turning to directing. She directed at regional theatres across the country, and locally at Mark Taper Forum, Pasadena Playhouse, and Los Angeles Theatre Center. Her artistic home, however, was the Fountain Theatre, where she directed nine shows. Her many directorial credits included Citizen: An American Lyric, Yellowman, Central Avenue, The Ballad of Emmett Till, From the Mississippi Delta, Runaway Home, and more. Ms. Finney received multiple awards and was revered as an important figure in the Los Angeles theatre community. Her final show was Clyde’s, at the Ensemble Theatre of Houston.
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