New City Players to Receive Carbonells’ Jan McArt Award

New City Players, the vest-pocket theater company that has consistently produced memorable work since 2014 in Broward County,  has been named the recipient of the first Jan McArt Award from the Carbonells Awards program.

The award recognizes significant achievement by a small theater.

The presentation will be at the 48^th Annual Carbonell Awards at 7:30 p.m. November 17 at 7:30 pm at FAU’s University Theatre in Boca Raton — a change in venue for the program.

The Carbonells plan to release each of its other special awards one at a time and then the nominees in its traditional categories each of the succeeding Tuesdays. The most prestigeous George Abbott Award has already been announced for William Hayes and Sue Ellen Beryl, co-founders of Palm Beach Dramaworks.

The new award unanimously approved by the program’s board is named after the legendary Florida actress, director and producer  at the Royal Palm Dinner Theatre in Mizner Park and who died in 2021.

 New City Players is a professional, ensemble-based nonprofit theater whose stated mission is “to stage transformative, classic, contemporary, and original works of live theatre that explore the complexity and diversity of the human experience, create space for authentic dialogue, and connect South Florida audiences and artists.”

During the 2024-2025 season, Producing Artistic Director Tim Davis presented rave-worthy productions of Arthur Miller’s All My Sons, the Florida premiere of Dominique Morisseau’s Confederates, and the world premiere of The Last Christmas by Tyler Johnson Grimes.

In his nomination of NCP, award-winning producer-director-playwright Stuart Meltzer declared, “New City Players is the ‘little theatre that could.’ It blindly tackles a large scope of theatrical titles that on the surface seem so daunting and unrealistic, but they somehow come out on the other end with their own stamp of creative chutzpah and diligence on the piece. The focus of New City Players is community, inclusion, equality and telling very good stories but also being an impactful creative entity of humility and gumption.”

All the 2025 Special Award recipients were nominated by members from South Florida’s theater community with the Carbonell Board of Directors making the final selection.

The 120 Carbonell Award nominee finalists will be based on accumulated scores from the nonprofit organization’s pool of nearly 50 experienced and diverse volunteer judges—with seven judges from various counties assigned to each show. During the 2024-2025 season, Carbonell judges adjudicated over 100 professional productions at more than 30 theatres across Broward, Miami-Dade and Palm Beach Counties.

The November gala will be produced and directed by Andrew Kato, Producing Artistic Director/Chief Executive of the Maltz Jupiter Theatre, with Caryl Fantel as Music Director. Tickets for the ceremony and after party are $45 and will go on public sale in mid-September.

Along with New York’s Drama Desk and Chicago’s Joseph Jefferson Awards, the Carbonell Awards are among the nation’s oldest regional arts awards and predate others, including Washington, D.C.’s Helen Hayes Awards. The Carbonell Awards are named after the internationally renowned sculptor Manuel Carbonell, who designed the signature solid bronze and marble award given annually to Carbonell Award winners. Over nearly half a century, the Carbonell family has donated more than $250,000 in awards.

For more information, please visit www.carbonellawards.org.