Actor-Singer-Dancer ANDRÉ De SHIELDS to Receive Lifetime Achievement Award at the 33rd Annual Bistro Awards Gala Monday, March 12, 6:30 pm at Gotham Comedy Club
Photo by Lia Chang
New York City, January 19, 2018) —Tony and Drama Desk nominee and multi-Audelco Award and Outer Critics Circle Award winner André De Shields will be honored at the 33rd Annual Bistro Awards on Monday, March 12, where he will be receiving the Bob Harrington Lifetime Achievement Award, the Bistro Awards’ highest honor, for his five decades of stage and nightclub accomplishments.
The actor-singer-dancer- choreographer made his mark on Broadway in the title role of The Wiz, which was followed by the long-running Ain’t Misbehavin’, for which he received a Drama Desk nomination, and Stardust: The Mitchell Parish Musical. He received Tony and Drama Desk nominations for Play On! and The Full Monty on Broadway, and a Drama Desk nomination for his performance in Black Nativity off Broadway. In Chicago, he has won the prestigious Joseph Jefferson Award three times. He can currently be seen in Mankind at Playwrights Horizons.
De Shields embraced cabaret early on. Beginning in the ’70s, he has created a string of original shows, among them Have You Ever Been Kissed by Lightning? (starring Mau Mau The Zulu Vampire, Half Man-Half Cadillac), The Insatiable Mechanical Monster, Uptown Sunday Night, and Black by Popular Demand; they have been performed at such landmark New York clubs as Gypsy’s, the Grand Finale, Reno Sweeney, Les Mouches, the Club at La MaMa, the Horn of Plenty, Greene Street, and most recently Joe’s Pub and the Laurie Beechman Theatre—as well as in Los Angeles, San Francisco, and London. In 1984, he co-wrote, choreographed, co-directed, and starred in the Broadway musical revue Andre De Shields’ Haarlem Nocturne; it celebrated the nightclubs of Harlem’s Golden Age and was produced at The Latin Quarter.
The Bistro Awards gala will be held on Monday, March 12 at 6:30 pm at Gotham Comedy Cub, 208 W. 23rd St., produced by Sherry Eaker, who has headed up the event since its inception.
A full list of winners will be announced at the end of the month, when tickets will go on sale at www.BistroAwards.com.
Sherry Eaker has been the producer of the annual Bistro Awards since the awards’ inception in 1985. She is the former editor of "Back Stage" and, during her 30-year run, produced panel discussions and workshop events on an ongoing basis, including the programming for Back Stage’s annual Actorfest. She compiled and edited four editions of the "Back Stage Handbook for Performing Artists," and compiled and edited "The Cabaret Artists Handbook." She is a member of the National Theatre Conference and the American Theatre Critics Association (and produced eight of ATCA’s New York weekend conferences). She is an advisor to the boards of both the Manhattan Association of Cabarets and the Women in the Arts & Media Coalition.
