Professional Awards
Distinguished Service in Performing Arts Librarianship Award
Distinguished Service in Performing Arts Librarianship Award
A special Award for Distinguished Service in Performing Arts Librarianship is given each year to an individual who has made extraordinary contributions to the field.
THE IDEAL CANDIDATE for the Distinguished Service Award may well be someone you know and have worked with— someone who has made a difference in your professional life and whose energy and vision have expanded your own view of what it means to be a performing arts professional. Your candidate may also have had a transformative effect on performing arts librarianship and may have expanded the boundaries of performing arts librarianship. TLA wants to recognize and honor such individuals and acknowledge their expertise and creativity.
PLEASE TAKE A MOMENT to nominate a candidate for the 2012 Distinguished Service Award, who may be a performing arts librarian, a curator, an archivist or a scholar. Please submit your candidate’s name, accompanied by a short biography, to Phyllis Dircks by December 1, 2011. The award will be presented at the 2012 TLA Business Meeting and Awards Ceremony. In making the nomination, you will be helping to bring to renown a deserving professional, as well as enhancing the state of all performing arts professionals.
For more information, please contact Distinguished Service Award Committee chair, Phyllis Dircks.
2011 Distinguished Service Award Winner
Susan Brady, Archivist, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University; TLA President, 1999-2000
Susan Brady is an archivist at the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University, specializing in the processing of performing arts collections. She has held librarian/archivist positions at Yale in the Arts Library, the Yale Center for British Art, and the Department of Manuscripts and Archives, and at the Harvard Theatre Collection. Susan has served as a Board member, Vice President, and President of Theatre Library Association, and as Co-Chair of the Performing Arts Roundtable of the Society of American Archivists. She edited volume 21 of Performing Arts Resources, After the Dance: Documents of Ruth St. Denis and Ted Shawn, and co-edited volume 25 of PAR, Documenting: Lighting Design, published in 2007.
Susan has presented papers and planned and chaired programs at annual meetings of the American Society for Theatre Research/Theatre Library Association, the American Library Association, and the Society of American Archivists, and has served on numerous committees focusing on performing arts documentation, cataloging and access. She currently is Co-Chair of the Steering Committee of the American Theatre Archive Project (ATAP), an initiative to preserve the records of theatre companies throughout North America. Susan holds graduate degrees in Theatre History and Criticism and Library Science from the University of Texas at Austin.
2011 Distinguished Service Award Committee: Phyllis Dircks, Chair; Maryann Chach; Don Wilmeth
Distinguished Service Award Winners, 1994-Present
Honorary Membership is conferred by the Board of Directors upon individuals who have demonstrated longstanding dedication to TLA.
Current Honorary Members
Louis A. Rachow served as President of the Theatre Library Association from 1967 to 1972, and from 1981 to 1983. In the years in between, he was Editor of BROADSIDE. Prior to his position as Library Director of the International Theatre Institute of the United States, he was Curator/Librarian of the Hampden-Booth Theatre Library of The Players from 1962 to 1988. His published works include editorship of the Gale Information Guide Performing Arts Series and Theatre and Performing Arts Collections published by Haworth Press. A long-time member of the American Library Association, American Society for Theatre Research, the New York Library Club, and Archons of Colophon, he is currently a Vice President of the Episcopal Actors Guild and Co-chair of its Archives Committee. He received his MS in Library Service from Columbia University. Awarded October 9, 2009.
"Dr. Marian Seldes--she was awarded an honorary doctorate from Julliard one week ago today--is popularly known in the theatre community as the "actor's actor," a consummate professional at her art and a wonder to behold in any role she cares to undertake. She has just been nominated for her fifth TONY award--as Best Featured Actress in a Play--for her performance in the recent revival of Dinner at Eight here at Lincoln Center--and on Sunday she will receive the prestigious Edwin Booth Award bestowed annually by the Players Club. Dr. Seldes has won numerous awards honoring her excellence as an actor but I hope, today, she is about to earn her first for excellence as a researcher, bibliophile, and great and true friend to the Theatre Library Association. In our 66 year history, she is only the second person to be honored with a Lifetime Membership Award, so we do not bestow this award lightly. She frequently has graced the book awards with her elegance, intelligence, and savoir faire as an awards presenter; in fact, she's done it 4 times in the past 10 years, and many times before that, sometimes pinch-hitting at the last minute for a presenter who has fallen ill. No matter how late the call, she still manages not only to read the book but also to have incisive, engaging, and often moving commentary to share." - Marti LoMonaco. Awarded May 30, 2003.
Last updated: November 9, 2011