Lilly Awards

The Lilly Awards are an American awards ceremony recognizing extraordinary women in theatre. An annual celebration is held in New York to honor female writers, composers, directors, designers, producers and advocates. Some men have also been awarded the Miss Lilly, a prize in recognition of their advocacy for women in a male-dominated industry. Named after Lillian Hellman, the Lilly Awards were founded in 2010 by the playwrights Julia Jordan, Marsha Norman and Theresa Rebeck. Marsha Norman is a Pulitzer Prize and Tony-award winning playwright, whose work includes the book of the musical The Color Purple and book and lyrics of The Secret Garden.^[1]

The Lillys promote the work of women in theatre by partnering with the Dramatists Guild to produce The Count, the first study of its kind to measure the data of the theatre industry and investigate the lack of gender parity in American theatre. Between 2011-2014, in a study sampling 2,508 productions in American theatres, only 22% of the plays and musicals produced in America were written by women.^[2]

By 2018, there have been a few notable attempts to draw the attention of theatres to the work of American female playwrights, including LA-based group, The Kilroys, who founded an annual industry-based survey of excellent female and trans playwrights' work in 2013.

Previous Lilly Award winners include Annie Baker, who won the 2014 Pulitzer Prize for Drama for her play The Flick, Lynn Nottage, who won the 2017 Pulitzer Prize for Sweat, Martyna Majok, who won the 2018 Pulitzer Prize for her play Cost of Living, and Jeanine Tesori, who is the most recognised female composer in history with five Broadway musicals and five Tony Award Nominations, including the 2015 Tony Award for Best Original Score for Fun Home.^[3]