The 38th Academy of the Arts Achievement Awards Dinner at The Rainbow Room. Photo: Rossa Cole
We proudly present the 39th Annual Academy of the Arts Achievement Awards Dinner on Tuesday, April 22, 2025, at The Rainbow Room, New York City. The Academy of the Arts is a community of over 200 of the nation’s most accomplished artists and creative professionals who lend their talent and expertise to Guild Hall.
This year, we honor Eric Fischl with the Chairman’s Award for Service to the Academy, in recognition of his Academy stewardship and co-founding of the Guild House Artist-in-Residence program. It is also our honor to recognize arts patron and trustee Linda Lindenbaum for her many years of support with the Special Award for Leadership and Philanthropy.
We are delighted to recognize our newest inductees to the Academy of the Arts: Katie Couric, Neil Patrick Harris, Sheree Hovsepian, Jane Krakowski, Ebon Moss-Bachrach, Joseph M. Pierce, David Rockwell, Jeffrey Seller, and Almond Zigmund. The event will be hosted by our new Academy President, Susan Stroman.
To be included as a Benefit Committee Member, you are asked to support Guild Hall by purchasing tickets or a table or contribute to the event. In recognition of your generosity, we will include your name on the digital invitation (for responses received by February 3), on our website, and in the evening program.
Please contact Kendra Korczak, Director of Events and Corporate Relations, at events@guildhall.org or call 631.324.0806 x116 with any questions.
Tickets are not refundable. The non-deductible amount per ticket is $175.00.
Can’t attend? We appreciate your contribution.
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Eric Fischl
Eric Fischl is an internationally acclaimed American painter and sculptor. His artwork is represented in many distinguished museums throughout the world and has been featured in over one thousand publications. His extraordinary achievements throughout his career have made him one of the most influential figurative painters of the late 20th and early 21st centuries.
Fischl was born in 1948 in New York City and grew up in the suburbs of Long Island. He began his art education in Phoenix, Arizona where his parents had moved in 1967. He attended Phoenix College and earned his B.F.A. from the California Institute for the Arts in 1972. He then spent some time in Chicago, where he worked as a guard at the Museum of Contemporary Art. In 1974, he moved to Halifax, Nova Scotia, to teach painting at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design. Fischl had his first solo show, curated by Bruce W. Ferguson, at Dalhousie Art Gallery in Nova Scotia in 1975 before relocating to New York City with his future wife, April Gornik, in 1978.
Fischl's suburban upbringing painfully provided him with the complex themes enmeshed in a world of segregated privilege, alcoholism, narcissism, dysfunction, madness and country club culture obsessed with image over content. His early work thus became focused on the rift between what was experienced and what could not be said. His first New York City solo show was at Edward Thorp Gallery in 1979, during a time when suburbia was not considered a legitimate genre for art. He first received critical attention for depicting the dark, disturbing undercurrents of upper-middleclass American life.
Fischl's paintings, sculptures, drawings and prints have been the subject of numerous solo and major group exhibitions and his work is represented in many museums, as well as prestigious private and corporate collections, including The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Whitney Museum of American Art, The Museum of Modem Art in New York City, The Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles, St. Louis Art Museum, Louisiana Museum of Art in Denmark, MusÈe Beaubourg in Paris, to name a few.
Throughout his artistic life, Fischl has had the good fortune to collaborate on various book projects with E.L. Doctorow, Allen Ginsberg, Jamaica Kincaid, Jerry Saltz and Frederic Tuten. He co-authored with Michael Stone, a memoir titled Bad Boy: My Life On and Off the Canvas that was published in 2013.
Among his passion for art education and community building through creativity, he has created scholarships and internships for young artists and art students.
In 2021, along with his wife April, he co-founded The Church, a community art center and artist residency in Sag Harbor. To date, it is their most ambitious project and one they are most proud of.
Opening at the Phoenix Art Museum in November 2025, there will be a survey of Fischl’s 50 year art career.
Eric Fischl is a Fellow at both the American Academy of Arts and Letters and the American Academy of Arts and Science, and is the president of Guild Hall's Academy of the Arts. He lives and works in Sag Harbor, NY with his wife, the painter April Gornik.
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Susan Stroman
A five-time Tony Award winning director and choreographer most known for Crazy For You, Contact, The Scottsboro Boys, and The Producers. Her work has been honored with Olivier, Drama Desk, Outer Critics Circle, Lucille Lortel and a record six Astaire Awards.
She directed and choreographed The Producers, winner of a record-making 12 Tony Awards including Best Direction and Best Choreography.
She co-created, directed and choreographed the Tony Award winning musical Contact for Lincoln Center Theater, which was honored with a 2003 Emmy Award for “Live from Lincoln Center”.
She directed and choreographed the critically acclaimed musical The Scottsboro Boys on Broadway and in the West End, where it was honored with the 2014 Evening Standard Award for Best Musical.
Other Broadway credits include Oklahoma!, Show Boat, Prince of Broadway, Bullets Over Broadway, Big Fish, Young Frankenstein, Thou Shalt Not, The Music Man, The Frogs, Big, Steel Pier, Picnic, and Crazy for You.
Off-Broadway credits include: The Beast in the Jungle, Dot, Flora the Red Menace, And the World Goes ’Round, Happiness and The Last Two People on Earth: An Apocalyptic Vaudeville starring Mandy Patinkin and Taylor Mac.
For ten years she choreographed Madison Square Garden’s annual spectacular A Christmas Carol. She made her Metropolitan Opera debut directing and choreographing The Merry Widow, starring Renée Fleming.
Her London West End productions include Crazy For You, Oklahoma!, Show Boat, Contact, The Producers, and Young Frankenstein.
For New York City Ballet, she created Double Feature, a full-length ballet featuring the music of Irving Berlin and Walter Donaldson, and For the Love of Duke, featuring the music of Duke Ellington.
Other ballet credits include But Not For Me for the Martha Graham Company and Take Five…More or Less for Pacific Northwest Ballet. Her choreography received an Emmy Award nomination for the HBO presentation Liza – Live from Radio City Music Hall, starring Liza Minnelli. She received the American Choreography Award for her work in Columbia Pictures feature film Center Stage. She directed and choreographed The Producers: The Movie Musical, nominated for 4 Golden Globes.
She directed and choreographed the Broadway bound Ahrens/Flaherty musical Marie for The 5th Avenue Theater in Seattle. In collaboration with the Williamstown Theatre Festival, she directed the play Photograph 51 for Audible.
She is an Associate Director for Lincoln Center Theater and a member of the Board of Directors for the Ronald O. Perelman Center for the Performing Arts located at the World Trade Center.
She is the recipient of the George Abbott Award for Lifetime Achievement in the American Theater and an inductee of the Theater Hall of Fame in New York City.
Learn more at susanstroman.com
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Katie Couric
Katie Couric (@katiecouric) is an award-winning journalist and #1 New York Times best-selling author of her memoir, Going There, which was published in October 2021. She is also a co-founder of Stand Up To Cancer (SU2C). Since its launch in 2008, Stand Up To Cancer has raised almost $800 million to support cutting-edge collaborative science and its research has contributed to nine new FDA approved therapies.
In 2017, she founded Katie Couric Media (KCM), which has developed a number of media projects, including a daily newsletter, a podcast, digital video series and several documentaries. KCM works with purpose driven brands to create premium content that addresses important social issues like gender equality, environmental sustainability and mental health.
Previous documentaries produced by KCM include: America Inside Out with Katie Couric, a six-part series for National Geographic; Gender Revolution: A Journey with Katie Couric, for National Geographic; Under the Gun, which aired on EPIX; and Fed Up, available on iTunes, Amazon and YouTube. Couric was also the executive producer of Unbelievable on Netflix and is developing other scripted projects.
Couric was the first woman to solo anchor a network evening newscast, serving as anchor and managing editor of the CBS Evening News from 2006 to 2011 following 15-years as co-anchor of NBC’s Today show. She also hosted a syndicated show and served as the Yahoo Global News Anchor until 2017.
She has won a duPont-Columbia, a Peabody, two Edward R. Murrows, a Walter Cronkite Award, and multiple Emmys. She was twice named one of Time magazine’s 100 most influential people and was a Glamour Magazine woman of the year three times. She has also received numerous awards for her cancer advocacy work; honored by both the Harvard and Columbia schools of public health, the American Cancer Society and The American Association of Cancer Researchers.
In addition to Going There, Couric is also the author of two children’s books and The Best Advice I Ever Got: Lessons from Extraordinary Lives.
Photo: Andrew Eccles
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Neil Patrick Harris
Neil Patrick Harris is an Emmy and Tony award-winning actor, producer, author, and entrepreneur, known for his roles across TV, film, and theater. He recently completed his run in the Off-Broadway show Sh*t. Meet. Fan. and launched his board game, BoxTwo, the sophomore to the best-selling BoxOne. In 2021, he introduced Wondercade, a weekly newsletter that blends lifestyle inspiration with Harris' interests.
Harris is a five-time Emmy winner for hosting the Tony Awards and for his guest role on Glee. He’s also best known for portraying Barney Stinson in How I Met Your Motherand recently appeared and executive produced Uncoupled and Drag Me to Dinner. His other TV credits include Best Time Ever, American Horror Story, and Doogie Howser, M.D.
On film, Harris starred in Gone Girl and has appeared in Matrix: Resurrections, Downsizing, The Smurfs, and the Harold & Kumar series. A seasoned theater performer, Harris originated the role of Hedwig in Hedwig and the Angry Inch and has been involved in numerous Broadway and off-Broadway productions. He’s also directed and produced several theatrical projects, including In & Of Itself.
Harris is also a best-selling author, having written Neil Patrick Harris: Choose Your Own Autobiography and the Magic Misfits series. His voiceover work includes roles in Adventure Time, Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2, and Family Guy.
He lives in New York with his husband and two children.
Photo: Mark Veltman
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Sheree Hovsepian
Sheree Hovsepian (American b.Iran) earned an MFA from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2002.
Hovsepian’s work highlights the physicality of the photograph and photography’s relationship to the human body. Coaxed into sculptural forms, layered with tactile materials, and assembled into larger compositions, her work oscillates between object and image, creating an embodied experience of the photographic document.
Hovsepian was included in the 59th International Art Exhibition La Biennale di Venezia, The Milk of Dreams, curated by Cecilia Alemani. Recent exhibitions include solo presentations at Rachel Uffner Gallery, New York and Halsey McKay Gallery, East Hampton, NY. Hovsepian was included in Love Songs-Photography and Intimacy at the International Center for Photography, NYC as well as Affinities for Abstraction: Women Artists on Eastern Long Island, 1950-2020, Parrish Art Museum, Southampton, NY.
Hovsepian is in the permanent collections of the Art Institute of Chicago, the Bronx Museum, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, and the Everson Museum of Art, among others. She currently lives and works in New York City.
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Jane Krakowski
JANE KRAKOWSKI is an award-winning triple threat actress most commonly known for her role as Jenna Maroney on NBC's Emmy Award-winning 30 Rock. She was honored with four Emmy nominations for her work on the show, as well as a collective Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Comedy Series. She was most recently seen as Bobbie Flanagan in Apple's musical series Schmicago, the second season of Schmigadoon! Jane is the host of FOX's reboot of the classic game show Name That Tune. Other iconic television performances include her Golden Globe-nominated portrayal of Elaine Vassal on the multi-Award-winning Ally McBeal, her Critics' Choice winning, Emmy nominated Jacqueline White in Netflix's Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, Mrs. Dickinson in Apple's hit series Dickinson, Miss Shields in FOX's A Christmas Story Live film as well as guest stars on Modern Family, Curb Your Enthusiasm, At Home with Amy Sedaris, The Simpsons, American Dad, Drunk History, Younger and even Sesame Street. Jane starred on Broadway in the Roundabout Theater Company's production of She Loves Me (Outer Critics Circle Award, Astaire Award, Drama Desk Award and Tony nomination). She earned a Tony Award, a Drama Desk Award and an Outer Critics Circle Award for her portrayal of Carla in the Broadway musical Nine and a Tony nomination for Grand Hotel. Other Broadway credits include Company, Once Upon a Mattress, Tartuffe, and Starlight Express. She won an Olivier Award while starring in Guys and Dolls in London's West End and starred in the Encores! revival of Damn Yankees as well as Mrs. Potts in the Hollywood Bowl's production of Beauty and the Beast. Krakowski released her solo debut album, "The Laziest Gal in Town," a CD recording captured during her cabaret nightclub debut at the Park Avenue hotspot, Feinstein's at Loews Regency and performed a one- woman cabaret act to a sold-out crowd at NYC's legendary Town Hall Theater.
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Ebon Moss-Bachrach
Ebon Moss-Bachrach has acted in a wide range of film, television and theater productions. He currently stars as restaurant manager Richie Jerimovich in the comedy-drama series The Bear (2022–present), for which he was twice awarded the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series in addition to two Golden Globe Award nominations. He has also starred as series regular Chris McQueen in the critically acclaimed AMC series NOS4A2, in the CBS Studios drama series INTERROGATION, in TESLA, directed by Michael Almereyda opposite Ethan Hawke, which premiered at SUNDANCE 2020. Ebon starred as “Micro/Lieberman” in Season 1 of the Netflix/Marvel series PUNISHER, and was a series regular, in the final four seasons of HBO’s GIRLS. Other previous TV roles include THE LAST SHIP, BELIEVE, DAMAGES, the HBO miniseries JOHN ADAMS among others.His other recent film credits include Dolly Wells’ indie GOOD POSTURE which premiered at the 2019 Tribeca Film Festival, and the starring role opposite Elisabeth Moss in Richard Shepard’s short film TOKYO PROJECT which aired on HBO. Prior films include WE’LL NEVER HAVE PARIS, LOLA VS, HIGHER GROUND, EVENING, THE ROYAL TENENBAUMS, AMERICAN SPLENDOR, MONA LISA SMILE, ROAD (for which Ebon received the LA Film Festival acting award) and more. On the stage, Ebon starred in LOST GIRLS at MCC Theater, VERITE at LCT3, Austin Pendleton’s THREE SISTERS at CSC, THE GLASS MENAGERIE opposite Amy Irving directed by Harris Yulin, Chris Shinn’s ON THE MOUNTAIN, FIFTH OF JULY, 36 VIEWS, Daisy Foote’s WHEY THEY SPEAK OF RITA (directed by Horton Foote) and more. Born in Amherst, Massachusetts, Ebon is a graduate of Columbia University and resides in Brooklyn with his wife and two daughters.
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Joseph M. Pierce
Joseph M. Pierce is a 2024-25 Ford Foundation Scholar in Residence at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA). He is Associate Professor in the Department of Hispanic Languages and Literature and the Founding Director of the Native American and Indigenous Studies Initiative at Stony Brook University. He is the author of Argentine Intimacies: Queer Kinship in an Age of Splendor, 1890-1910 (SUNY Press, 2019) and Speculative Relations: Indigenous Worlding and Repair (Duke University Press, 2025), co-editor of Políticas del amor: Derechos sexuales y escrituras disidentes en el Cono Sur (Cuarto Propio, 2018) as well as the 2021 special issue of Gay and Lesbian Studies Quarterly, “Queer/Cuir Américas: Translation, Decoloniality, and the Incommensurable.” He has published work in Revista Hispánica Moderna, Critical Ethnic Studies, Latin American Research Review, and Art Journal, as well as in popular outlets such as Hyperallergic, TruthOut, and Indian Country Today. Along with S.J. Norman (Wiradjuri) he is co-curator of the performance series Knowledge of Wounds. He is a citizen of the Cherokee Nation.
Joseph M. Pierce es uno de los investigadores en residencia por el año 2024-25 en el Museo de Arte Moderno (MoMA). Es profesor asociado en el Departamento de lenguas y literatura hispánicas además de servir como director inaugural de la iniciativa para los estudios indígenas y nativo americanos en Stony Brook University. Es autor de Argentine Intimacies: Queer Kinship in an Age of Splendor, 1890-1910 (SUNY Press, 2019) y Speculative Relations: Indigenous Worlding and Repair (Duke UP, 2025); co-editor de Políticas del amor: Derechos sexuales y escrituras disidentes en el Cono Sur (Cuarto Propio, 2018) además del número especial de la revista GLQ, “Queer/Cuir Américas: Traducción, decolonialidad y lo inconmensurable” (2021). Su trabajo ha sido publicado en Revista Hispánica Moderna, Critical Ethnic Studies, Latin American Research Review, además de Hyperallergic, TruthOut, Indian Country Today y Revista Terremoto. Junto con S.J. Norman (Wiradjuri) es co-curador de la serie de performance Knowledge of Wounds. Es ciudadano de la nación cherokee.
Photo: Marcin Muchalsk
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David Rockwell
David Rockwell, FAIA, is the founder and President of Rockwell Group, a 330-person cross-disciplinary architecture and design firm based in New York with offices in Los Angeles and Madrid. Merging theater, performance, and architecture to create unique narratives for each project, the firm’s work includes hotels and restaurants, theaters, cultural and educational institutions, set designs, products, and exhibitions.
Honors include the AIANY President’s Award; the National Design Award from the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum; two Emmy Awards; a Tony Award for Best Scenic Design for She Loves Me; the Presidential Design Award; induction into the James Beard Foundation Who’s Who of Food & Beverage in America; inclusion in Architectural Digest’s AD100 Hall of Fame; Interior Design magazine’s Icon Award; and recognition by Fast Company as one of the most innovative design practices in their annual World’s 50 Most Innovative Companies issue.
For more information, please visit rockwellgroup.com.
Photo: Emily Andrews
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Almond Zigmund
Originally from Brooklyn, Almond received a BFA from Parsons School of Design, in New York and Paris and an MFA from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, where she studied art theory and criticism with the MacArthur Award-winning critic, Dave Hickey.
Almond makes large scale site responsive installations. Her work has been exhibited locally and internationally. She has completed various public commissions and is currently working on a large scale public sculpture for the art in embassies program of the US State Dept. She has lived and worked on the east end of Long Island for 20 years.