The Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art at the Brooklyn Museum presents the Sackler Center First Awards, honoring women who are first in their fields.



The 2013 Sackler Center First Awards honors Julie Taymor, the first woman to win the Tony Award for Best Direction of a Musical.



In conversation with Gloria Steinem. Award presented by Elizabeth A. Sackler.



A private cocktail reception follows the ceremony.



Proceeds benefit the Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art.



Tickets to this special event are $200 ($150 for Brooklyn Museum Members and Members of the Council for Feminist Art) and include admission to the ceremony and reception. Tickets for the program alone are $20, $15 for Members.



For tickets to the Sackler Center First Awards, please contact: special.events@brooklynmuseum.org or (718) 501-6589.



In 1998, Julie Taymor became the first woman to win the Tony Award for Best Direction of a Musical, and won a Tony for Best Costumes, for her production of The Lion King. The musical has gone on to become Broadway’s all-time highest-grossing show and the fifth-longest-running show in Broadway history. For her latest Broadway production, Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark, Taymor served as director and co–book writer.  Her 1996 Broadway debut, Juan Darién: A Carnival Mass, earned five Tony nominations. Other theater credits include The Green Bird, Titus Andronicus, The Tempest, The Taming of the Shrew, The Transposed Heads, and Liberty’s Taken.  Taymor is currently preparing for the stage a new adaptation of William Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, which will premiere in fall 2013 as the inaugural production at Theatre for a New Audience’s permanent new home in downtown Brooklyn.  Taymor’s feature films include Titus, starring Anthony Hopkins, Jessica Lange, and Alan Cumming; the biographical film Frida, starring Salma Hayek and Alfred Molina, which earned six Academy Award nominations, winning two; the Beatles-inspired Across the Universe, nominated for a Golden Globe for Best Motion Picture—Musical or Comedy; and her Helen Mirren–starring adaptation of William Shakespeare’s The Tempest, which had its North American premiere at the New York Film Festival following a world premiere at the Venice International Film Festival. Beyond the theater and screen, Taymor has directed five operas internationally, including Oedipus Rex with Jessye Norman, for which she earned the International Classical Music Award for Best Opera Production and an Emmy for a subsequent film version; as well as Salomé, The Flying Dutchman, Die Zauberflöte (in repertory at The Met), The Magic Flute (the abridged English version, which inaugurated a PBS series entitled “Great Performances at The Met”), and Elliot Goldenthal’s Grendel.  Taymor is a 1991 recipient of the MacArthur "genius" Fellowship.