The Broadway League Awards have been an annual tradition since 1992.

The Broadway League Awards honor excellence and achievement in the world of Broadway touring. They’re a little different than any other awards I know in that they honor the people in the management office. No stars on stage here—just people who have shown “exemplary service to the Broadway industry.” Tom Gabbard of the Blumenthal Performing Arts in Charlotte, N.C., won the Samuel J. L’Hommedieu Award for Outstanding Achievement in Presenter Management for his work in making the BPA Center a leader in touring houses. Wayne McWorter of the Pantages Theatre in L.A. won the Outstanding Achievement in Road Marking award for creating an in-house marketing team at the theatre. And Judith Lisi was honored with the Distinguished Lifetime Service Award for her work at the David A. Straz Center for the Performing Arts located in Tampa, Fl. Full awards list after the jump.

Andrea Stolowitz won the inaugural Fowler/Levin Prize. Photo by Roxanne Spiegel

The Artists Reperotry Theatre in Portland launched the Fowler/Levin Prize last year with a call for playwrights to submit their concepts. Now they’ve named the winner of the inaugural prize: Andrea Stolowitz. Stolowitz’s play, about a Marine adjusting to civilian life, will receive a full commission from Artists Rep, which plans to produce the play in their 2012/2013 season.

The National Alliance for Musical Theatre gave 15 grants to 14 organizations.

The National Alliance for Musical Theatre has awarded 15 new grants, totaling $48,000, to 14 organizations from its National Fund for New Musicals. Diversionary Theatre in San Diego, Calif., Playwrights Horizons in New York, and TheatreWorks in Palo Alto, Calif., earned National Fund Grants for $10,000 to support full productions. National Fund Grants offering support between $2000-$3000 and $1,000 Writers Residency Grants were also awarded. More details about the fund and a full list of orgs receiving money after the jump.

Viva Broadway will help Broadway establish deeper ties to the Hispanic community.

Broadway was once called “The Great White Way,” and lately it’s been under fire for hewing a little too closely to that appellation. There are lots of creative, intelligent people working to address that issue, however, and the Broadway League has just launched a new initiative to broaden the audience. Called “Viva Broadway,” the initiative aims to develop a partnership with the Hispanic community, reaching out to them as an audience and to help them view Broadway as place to build a career. To start with they’ve partnered with New York City’s Latin Media and Entertainment Commission to increase awareness of Broadway’s shows and educate the Hispanic audience on how to navigate the ticket buying process and they’re looking to create Broadway Speakers Bureaus to let students know about the jobs available in theatre.

The Outer Critics cover theatre in New York for media based outside New York.

The Outer Critics Circle is an organization of media covering New York theatre for out-of-town papers, radio, and other media. Each year they vote on their picks for the best in NYC theatre in 24 categories in the run up to the Tonys. Yeah, they’re kinda like the Golden Globes of the theatre awards. The big winners at the Outer Critics this year were One Man, Two Guvnors, which picked up the award for Outstanding New Broadway Play and Once, which won Outstanding New Broadway Musical. Both production also picked up a couple other awards in other categories, bring each shows total to three. Full list of winners, including the Off-Broadway categories, after the jump.

The League of Professional Theatre Women will present The Legacy Project, a celebration of Pioneering Women Producers on May 14.

The League of Professional Theatre Women will present a day-long tribute to the pioneering women of 20^th century theatre, including many of those responsible for laying the foundation of regional theatre. The program will offer a day of lectures and discussion on theatrical figures such as Eva Le Gallienne, who created The Civic Repertory Theatre; Margo Jones, who pioneered theatre-in-the-round and was a harbinger of the regional theatre movement; Lucille Lortel, leader in the Off' Broadway movement. The presentations will be given by historians (Susan Quinn, Furious Improvisation), biographers (Alexis Greene, Lucille Lortel: Queen of Off Broadway), and scholars (Wendy Ann Vierow, American Stage Directors of the Twentieth Century). The event is free.

Woolly Mammoth’s new position aims to try new ways of engaging and enlarging their audience.

Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company in Washington, D.C., has hired Jocelyn Prince as their new “Connectivity Director.” It’s a new term for me—and perhaps for the industry. It sounds like a mix between social media expert and cruise director, thinking of more fun ways to keep your audience engaged. Woolly Mammoth describes it as a way to “create vital audiences through relationships in the greater Washington community and the cultivation of new audiences, as well as to enrich and enliven the theatergoing experience through unique experiences in the lobby, around the building, and throughout DC.” The position has been funded through a variety of sources—though mainly the Doris Duke Foundation—and Prince is kicking off her tenure around Woolly’s newest play, Mr. Burns, a post-electric play with such activities as a visual art show around the show’s themes, post-show discussions, and trivia contests throughout the D.C. area.

The Write Now initiative from Childsplay and Indiana Rep will promote new work for children’s theatre.

Childsplay and the Indiana Repertory Theatre have received a grant from the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation to fund a new initiative to promote the development of new plays for young audiences, called “Write Now.” Write Now will develop work from emerging and established playwrights with convenings of producers and experts from across the country to hear their scripts read. The Write Now program is replacing the Bonderman Playwriting for Youth National Competition and Symposium.

Rene Buch founded Repertorio Espanol in 1968

René Buch, founder and artistic director of Repertorio Español in New York City, has been named to The Order of Isabella the Catholic by Spain. The Order is a civil order granted to non-Spanish citizens to recognize contributions to Spanish cultural exchange. Buch, originally from Cuba, founded the Repertorio Español in 1968 and has made a career of championing Hispanic-American playwrights, toured Spain and Latin America with his repertory company of actors, and advocated for Spanish-language theatre and arts.

Woolly Mammoth will raise $4 million to support new play develeopment

Woolly Mammoth is doing its best to make sure new plays don’t become extinct. They’ve just started the public portion of their fundraising campaign for “Free the Beast,” an initiative that will raise $4 million to develop 25 new plays from 2012-2022, all of which will receive a full production. The initiative will also support research into new commissioning models, play readings and workshops, larger cast size, more technical resources and extra rehearsals. Three plays supported by Free the Beast have been announced. They include: You for Me for You by Mia Chung, Stupid Fucking Bird by Aaron Posner, and Zombie: The American by Robert O’Hara.