Lower East Side Community Hero

Nominated by Briana Bartenieff

Photo by Jonathan Slaff, The Village Sun

OBIE Award winning actress Crystal Field is co-founder and Artistic Director of Theater for the New City (TNC). Under her leadership TNC has produced over 800 new plays which have garnered a Pulitzer Prize and over 43 OBIE Awards for excellence in every theatrical discipline. TNC has also nurtured the talents of Sam Shepard, Maria Irene Fornes, Romulus Linney, Richard Foreman, Lee Breuer, Miguel Piñero, Charles Busch, Moises Kaufman, Vin Diesel, Adrien Brody, Eduardo Machado, Jean-Claude van Itallie and Tim Robbins. Ms. Field’s staunch belief in the civic necessity of theater has manifested itself in the creation of several major New York City events such as the original Village Halloween Parade, the Annual Native American Pow-Wow and the Lower East Side Festival of the Arts. Ms. Field is also the Director, Author and Choreographer of TNC’s award-winning 5-Borough Annual Free Summer Street Theater Program, which tours an original musical with an integrated company of 50 through under-served neighborhoods of New York City. The unique multi-disciplinary format of TNC’s Arts-in-Education Program was created by Ms. Field, who continues to serve as the Project Director. Ms. Field was a member of the original Lincoln Center Company under the direction of Elia Kazan, Harold Clurman and Robert Whitehead. She was also a member of the Judson Poets Theater and Andre Gregory’s Theater of the Living Arts. She won an OBIE Award for her performance in Arthur Sainer’s DAY OLD BREAD. Other notable performances include her work inBIRDY, SPLENDOR IN THE GRASS, RADIO DAYS, LITTLE CHILDREN, LAW & ORDER and most recently, THE RAFT, with Ed Asner. Ms. Field was recently awarded the NY Post’s Liberty Community Medal for her service to the Lower East Side.