The 94th Annual Town Hall Gala Benefit
President Emeritus of Town Hall Marvin Leffler & Senior Advisor, McGraw Hill Education Charlotte Frank
The honorees this year were Henry Butler, Paul Libin and KT Sullivan.
Henry Butler is a ten-time Pinetop Perkins Best Blues Instrumentalist Award nominee. A rich amalgam of jazz, Caribbean, classical, pop, blues, and R&B, his music is as excitingly eclectic as that of his New Orleans birthplace. He has played almost every major club and festival in the United States, as well as venues across four other continents. For over forty years, he has conducted workshops, clinics, and master classes throughout the country; he has also developed a camp for blind and visually-impaired teen musicians. Blinded by glaucoma at birth, Butler has been playing the piano since he was six years old and arranging, composing, and performing professionally since he was twelve.
Paul Libin serves as the executive Vice President of Jujamcyn Theaters, which he joined in 1990. Mr. Libin began his professional career in the theatre as an actor. Since then, he has worked as a director, stage manager, company manager, general manager, managing director, and producing director. He produced his first play in New York in 1958 and, to date, more than 250 productions on Broadway, Off-Broadway, and on tour. Mr. Libin is the owner of The Circle in the Square Theatre, President of the Circle in the Square Theatre School, and has been on the Board of Governors at the Broadway League since 1976. He is also a member of the Broadway League’s Executive committee, the Tony Award Management Committee, President of Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIRDS, a trustee of The Actors Fund, Actors’ Equity Pension Fund, Treasurers’ Pension Fund, and an Adjunct Professor of Theatre Arts at Columbia University. Mr. Libin was the Producing Director of Circle in the Square Theatre and served as President of the League of Off-Broadway Theatres for 30 years. The recipient of many awards including nine Tony Awards, in 2003 he was awarded the Eugene O’Neill Medallion, in 2004 he received the Eugene O’Neill Foundation Tao House Award, and in 2013 the Tony Award for Lifetime Achievement in the Theatre.
KT Sullivan was named artistic director of the Mabel Mercer Foundation, the presenter of the annual Cabaret Convention, in 2012. She starred in the Broadway revival Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, and headlined for almost two decades in The Oak Room at The Algonquin Hotel. One of the shows she created there, Rhyme, Women and Song, was presented this season in a one-hour presentation on PBS’ WNET 13. Besides regular appearances in such New York venues as The Laurie Beechman Theatre and 54 Below, she annually stars at The Crazy Cogs in London, and has been showcased at Lincoln Center, Carnegie Hall, The Kennedy Center, The Spoleto Festival, La Nouvelle Eve in Paris, and the Adelaid Festival in Australia. She was the star vocalist of two tours of China with The Manhattan Symphonie, and was twice named one of The Top 100 Irish Americans by Irish America Magazine. #
