10th Annual Marshall T. Meyer Risk-Taker Awards
Thursday, November 16th, 2006
Honoring: Tony Kushner, Grace Paley & the Transport Workers Union Local 100
Tony Kushner* is a groundbreaking artist and writer and a longtime outspoken activist. He won a Pulitzer Prize and two Tony Awards for his two-part, seven-hour Broadway production of Angels in America: A Gay Fantasia on National Themes. His other plays including Homebody/Kabul, Caroline or Change and his recent translation of Bertolt Brecht's Mother Courage and her Children, are concerned with the moral responsibilities of individuals in politically repressive times. Kushner wrote the screenplay for the Mike Nichols film of "Angels in America" and Steven Spielberg’s “Munich,” which was nominated for an Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay. Recent books include A Dybbuk, Brundibar, with illustrations by Maurice Sendak and Wrestling with Zion: Progressive Jewish-American Responses to the Palestinian/Israeli Conflict co-edited with Alisa Solomon. * See Tony Kushners' remarks at the event, click here!
Grace Paley was born in New York City and wrote her first book of stories, The Little Disturbances of Man in 1959. With this book she established her reputation as a writer with a remarkably supple gift for language. Her second volume of stories, Enormous Changes at the Last Minute was published in 1974 and her third book of stories, Later the Same Day, appeared in 1985. In 1989, Paley was designated the first official New York State Author by then governor Mario Cuomo.
During the 1960s and 1970s, Paley was prominent as a nonviolent activist protesting the Vietnam War. She was one of the founders of the Greenwich Village Peace Center, spent time in jail for her antiwar activities, and visited Vietnam and Moscow as a member of peace delegations, defining herself as a "somewhat combative pacifist and cooperative anarchist." Paley has been a life-long activist focusing on feminist, anti-nuclear and anti-war efforts. Paley has 2 children and 3 grandchildren and now lives in Vermont.
Transport Workers Union Local 100 was established in 1934 and has represented the transit workers of New York City for more than six decades. The Local represents virtually all the workers who drive and maintain city buses, as wells as a number of individuals working at private commuter bus lines, subway workers, drivers at New York Waterway, and call takers and schedulers at First Transit, a company that coordinates paratransit services in the City of New York. The union is comprised of about 38,000 members who are actively working at jobs and about 26,000 retirees.
In 2005 the Transport Workers Union Local 100 called for the third strike ever against New York City's Transit Authority. The 2005 strike began as negotiations for a new contract with the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) broke down over retirement, pension, and wage increases. These workers put their livelihoods and their families at risk to defend their dignity, respect and workers’ rights in our city & nationwide.