The 2026 LPTW Lucille Lortel Visionary Award recognizes Lynnie Godfrey, a visionary artist, dedicated and committed to the theatre. This award is a symbol of encouragement for Lynnie to continue on her path of excellence.
The award was established in 2000 with a bequest from the Lucille Lortel Estate. Each year, the Lucille Lortel Committee chooses recipients from a pool of recommendations through a collective review process.
Lynnie Godfrey is proud to be the recipient of the Honor Roll’s 2025 Legacy Award and was honored to receive the Scrimshaw Distinguished Visiting Artist Fund. She also received a certificate of induction as a Lloyd Richards fellow. Lynnie Godfrey received a Drama Desk nomination for her Broadway debut performance in the Musical Revue EUBIE! For excellence in Directing, she is the recipient of the Tyrone Guthrie Award as well as the NAACP Award for Producing. Further recognition was highlighted by receipt of the Dramalogue and NAACP Awards for Outstanding Performance by a Supporting Actor for her portrayal in No Place to be Somebody. The Audelco Award was given to her for outstanding performance in Shuffle Along. Grammy recognition was received for her recent CDs…Lynnie Godfrey Does it Her Way and Spending the Holiday with Lynnie Godfrey. Ms. Godfrey is a member of LPTW and served as Past President and VP of Membership. She is the former President of Friends of Music (FOM) and is currently at ArtsQuest, a member of the Diversity Charter. She sits on the Board of the virtual theatre company Virtual Arts. She is President and CEO of GodLee Entertainment, Inc., as well as the Artistic Director, and is on the Board of the Acting Ensemble, Essence of Acting, a 501c3 non-profit organization. Theatre performances include Lola in Damn Yankees during a record- breaking run at Hartford Stage, James Weldon Johnson’s God’s Trombones, August Wilson’s Gem of the Ocean at Arena Stage, Three Penny Opera as Jenny Diver at ESIPA, Christopher Durang’s Nature and Purpose of the Universe, and many more. Ms. Godfrey’s film credits include the Disney Detective film: V.I. Warshawski as Sal, the best friend of Kathleen Turner. In television, she starred in the CBS/Norman Lear sequel to All in the Family…704 Hauser. More than 30 Television guest and recurring appearances include: LA Law, Amen, 227, Frank’s Place, as well as in Oprah Winfrey’s series The Women of Brewster Place. Her first book is Lynnie Godfrey: Sharing Lessons Learned While Seeking the Spotlight.
Lucille Lortel
Lucille Lortel was born in New York City on December 16, 1900. Lortel studied acting and theatre at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts and with Arnold Korff in Europe, and made her Broadway debut in 1925 in the Theatre Guild’s production of Caesar and Cleopatra with Helen Hayes (lortel.org). Lortel has an illustrious list of credits which include, One Man’s Woman, The Dove, The Shanghai Gesture among many more. To further her career, Lortel founded the White Barn Theatre, which was a theatre set in an old horse barn on her estate. With this theatre, Lortel set the mission of presenting works of an unusual and experimental nature, developing the talents of new playwrights, composers, actors, directors and designers, and allowing established artists to open themselves up to new directions in pieces they might not have been able to do in commercial theatre (lortel.org). In 1955, eight years after Ms. Lortel started producing at the White Barn, Lortels husband presented his wife with the Theatre De Lys on Christopher Street in Greenwich Village as an anniversary present. In 1981, during the run of the award winning Tommy Tune production Cloud Nine, the Theatre de Lys was renamed the Lucille Lortel Theatre (lortel.org). As one of her last projects, Lucille Lortel wanted to create a permanent tribute to international playwrights whose work has been performed Off-Broadway. On October 26, 1998 she unveiled the Playwrights’ Sidewalk at the Lucille Lortel Theatre. Lortel’s wish was that the Lucille Lortel Theatre would continue long after her death. To that end, since her death in 1999, the theatre has hosted numerous theatre companies, productions, readings, and benefit performances (lortel.org).
