The 2020 Booth Award Honoring Mimi Lien

Due to the COVID-19 Pandemic, the traditional in-person event was replaced by an enduring online tribute that was launched officially on May 29th, 2020. 

The 2020 Booth Award Website celebrates four of Mimi Lien’s landmark undertakings — a) An Octoroon, b) Superterranean, c) Natasha, Pierre, and the Great Comet of 1812, and d) the Brooklyn performance space JACK — alongside five-minute-or-less video tributes from academics and from her acclaimed collaborators. 

Artists contributing include: Rachel Chavkin (The Great Comet, Hadestown), Dan Rothenberg (Pig Iron), Alec Duffy (JACK), Jennifer Kidwell (Underground Railroad Game), Tony Torn (Ubu Sings Ubu), as well as designers, performers, playwrights, and technicians. 

Mimi Lien designs sets and environments for theatre, dance, and opera. Arriving at set design from a background in architecture, her work often focuses on the interaction between audience/environment and object/performer. She is co-founder of JACK, the inclusion-minded performance space in Brooklyn; sits on the Board of Directors at Soho Rep; and is a core company member of Pig Iron Theatre Company (Philadelphia), where she was recently the lead artist of SUPERTERRANEAN (‘19), the company’s epic piece of “visual theatre.” 

Her visual dramaturgy has been central to some of the most celebrated shows in recent NYC history, including FairviewAn Octoroon, Taylor Mac’s A 24-Decade History of Popular MusicJohn, and Natasha, Pierre, & The Great Comet of 1812. Her work has been recognized with the Obie Award, Hewes Design Award, Tony Award, Drama Desk Award, Outer Critics Circle Award, Lucille Lortel Award, Bessie Award, and the MacArthur Fellowship. 

A brief ceremony, which included Mimi Lien’s unboxing of the Booth Award and a tour of the website, was live-streamed in English on HowlRound TV Friday, May 29th at 7:30PM.

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