LOS ANGELES DRAMA CRITICS CIRCLE ANNOUNCES SPECIAL ACHIEVEMENT AWARD HONOREES FOR THEATRICAL EXCELLENCE IN 2025  

DEMAND PR / David Elzer Marketing and Public Relations 

January 22, 2026…Los Angeles…The Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle (LADCC), Southern California’s preeminent organization of professional theatre critics and journalists, is pleased to announce the recipients of its annual Special Achievement Awards honoring sustained achievements and contributions to L.A.’s theatre arts spanning seasons, years, and even decades.

LADCC’s 2025 Theatre Awards voting cycle will continue with selection and announcements of finalists and recipients in the Circle’s traditional award categories for the 2025 season. Following the announcements, an Awards Reception celebrating the awards and the entire theatre community will conclude the voting cycle in April. 

SPECIAL ACHIEVEMENT AWARD HONOREES:

GORDON DAVIDSON AWARD for distinguished contributions to the Los Angeles Theatrical Community:  Gary Grossman, founder and retiring Artistic Director of the Skylight Theatre, and a defining force in Los Angeles small theater for over four decades. Championing world premieres and socially engaged work that larger institutions often avoided, he was one of the pioneers of the 99-seat theater movement that transformed the city's theatrical landscape and fought to preserve it through challenges that threatened its survival. 

MARGARET HARFORD AWARD for Sustained Excellence in Theatre:  Latino Theater Company, now celebrating its 40th anniversary, has been a home for bold contemporary work illuminating life in the Latina/o/x and other underrepresented communities while transforming the historic Los Angeles Theatre Center's five-theater complex into one of our most vibrant performing arts centers. Commitment to excellence in authentic storytelling, community education, and its National Latinx Theater Initiative's support of Latinx companies nationwide have made LTC an essential cultural institution reflecting and serving the rich mosaic of Los Angeles.

POLLY WARFIELD AWARD for an Outstanding 2025 Season:  Rogue Machine Theatre; the only company to receive the LADCC's Polly Warfield Award four times, continues its tradition of fearless programming in its 17th season with a slate of six well-received productions including world premieres, West Coast premieres, and the return of the Playwright's Roundtable Festival. Under the inaugural artistic leadership of Guillermo Cienfuegos, Rogue Machine remains a home where provocative work sparks both challenging intellectual exploration and profound emotional connection.   

JOEL HIRSCHHORN AWARD for Outstanding Achievement in Musical Theatre:  Musical Theatre Guild.  Founded in 1995 by a dedicated group of professional musical theater artists who first gathered in living rooms to explore their shared passion, MTG has since revived nearly 150 forgotten, undiscovered, and otherwise-unseen musicals for Los Angeles audiences in their distinctive concert staging format. The company's robust educational outreach programs bring the joy and history of musical theater to diverse youth throughout Southern California, cultivating the next generation of audiences for this uniquely American art form.

MILTON KATSELAS AWARD for Career or Special Achievement in Direction:  Gregg T. Daniel, Artistic Director of Lower Depth Theatre and one of L.A. theater's most vital voices exploring the African American experience and a celebrated director of the works of August Wilson in particular. His extensive collaborations across a wide swath of prominent companies have established him as one of the region's foremost champions and interpreters of new works and neglected classics by Black playwrights while mentoring a new generation of theater artists. 

TED SCHMITT AWARD for the World Premiere of an Outstanding New Play: 

Two new play co-honorees captured the imaginations of LADCC members:  

CORKTOWN ’39  by John Fazakerley 

Rogue Machine Theatre

YOU ARE CORDIALLY INVITED TO THE END OF THE WORLD!  by Keiko Green

South Coast Repertory

TECHNICAL DESIGN AWARD:  Joel Daavid, an acclaimed director and designer whose work has graced stages across Los Angeles for decades. As both resident designer and technical director for companies including the Fountain Theatre and A Noise Within, and with credits ranging from Theatre of NOTE to Pasadena Playhouse, Daavid’s inventive scenic and lighting designs have shaped the visual landscape of Los Angeles theater while mentoring countless artists in the craft of transforming intimate spaces into worlds that serve and enrich the story. 

THEATER ANGEL AWARD:  The Perenchio Foundation, for its extraordinary support of arts and culture throughout Los Angeles County. Since 2011, through multi-year operating grants, capital improvement funding, and emergency relief efforts, the foundation has helped countless theater institutions—from intimate storefront companies to major regional houses—survive the challenges of recent years, including the devastating impact of the pandemic and the 2025 fires. As a key partner in the LA Arts Recovery Fund, which distributed over $41 million to more than 100 arts organizations, and through its own grants prioritizing quality, accessibility, and permanence, the Perenchio Foundation has become an indispensable guardian of the region's cultural ecosystem. 

SPECIAL RECOGNITION AWARDS:  LADCC members also voted to honor the career achievements of two talented professionals who've had an enormous behind-the-scenes impact on the success of countless theater productions:

Victoria Hoffman:  As resident casting director for Rogue Machine Theatre and a trusted collaborator with companies including A Noise Within, Boston Court, Skylight Theatre, and the AFI Conservatory, Hoffman has spent decades matching the right actors to the right roles, shaping the ensembles that bring L.A.'s most acclaimed productions to life.

Karyl Lynn Burns:  As co-founder and Producing Artistic Director at Rubicon Theatre Company, since 1998 Burns has built Ventura's intimate 185-seat venue into a nationally recognized home for theatre artists that has presented over 160 productions—including more than 20 world premieres—earning Regional Tony, Drama Desk, and Ovation Awards, and production transfers to New York, London, and Tokyo. 

ABOUT LADCC:

Founded in 1969, the Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle is a nonprofit association of professional journalists dedicated to excellence in theatrical criticism and to the encouragement and support of theatre arts in Los Angeles, Orange, and Ventura counties (“Greater Los Angeles”).

Current officers consist of President and Awards Chair Philip Brandes (Stage Raw, ArtsBeatLA), Vice President and Website/Social Media Chair Patrick Chavis (LA Theatre Bites, The Orange Curtain Review), Treasurer Hoyt Hilsman (Cultural Daily), Co-Secretaries Martίn Hernández (Stage Raw) and Anita W. Harris (LATheatrix.com), and Fundraising Chair Katie Buenneke (Stage Raw, TheaterDigest.substack.com).

The current 2025 membership of the Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle also includes: Amanda Callas (BroadwayWorld, Discover Hollywood Magazine), F. Kathleen Foley (Stage Raw), Travis Michael Holder (TicketHoldersLA), Edward Hong (The Nerds of Color), Harker Jones (BroadwayWorld, Arts in LA), Deborah Klugman (Stage Raw), Dana Martin (Stage Raw), Myron Meisel (Stage Raw), Terry Morgan (ArtsBeatLA), Honorary Member Steven Leigh Morris (Stage Raw), Tracey Paleo (Gia On the Move, BroadwayWorld), Melinda Schupmann (ShowMag.com, ArtsInLA.com), Jonas Schwartz-Owen (Theatermania, BroadwayWorld), Don Shirley (Angeles Stage on Substack), and Socks Whitmore (Stage Raw).

Special thanks to our LADCC Theatre Awards sponsors:  Max Ash and William Turner Gallery.