Stephen Adly Guirgis – 2018 North Star Award Recipient

Stephen Adly Guirgis is a playwright, producer and actor whose plays and creative projects center themes of racism, poverty and imprisonment. His plays include Jesus Hopped the ‘A’ Train, The Motherfucker with the Hat, and Between Riverside and Crazy, for which he won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 2015. He co-created and wrote The Get Down for Netflix with Baz Luhrmann, an original series about the early years of hip hop in New York City. Stephen’s artistic work is shifting the narrative about whose stories define the New York experience.

In addition to a prolific body of stage work as a playwright, director and actor, he has shifted power within the theater community towards artists of color through mentoring, producing and as former co-artistic director of LAByrinth Theater Company. LAByrinth has supported and advanced the careers of numerous women and people of color as actors, writers and directors. He has also worked as an arts educator doing violence prevention/conflict resolution and HIV education in New York City area prisons, schools, shelters and hospitals.

We’re recognizing Stephen for his gifts as a writer, director and theater activist to engage people with art and community that provokes questions about the city and world we are living in.

Spend an evening with Stephen and 500+ New Yorkers who care about justice. Together we’ll celebrate our victories and build momentum for the work ahead.