Tickets Are On Sale For The Annual Gala
Taking Place On Monday, May 1, 2023 At the New York Marriott Marquis
New York, NY (April 10, 2023) – The Entertainment Community Fund, formerly The Actors Fund, will host its Annual Gala on Monday, May 1, 2023 in New York City. The evening, which marks the Fund’s inaugural gala under its new name, will celebrate distinguished philanthropist Glorya Kaufman; Head of Orion Pictures, film executive and producer Alana Mayo; Tony and Olivier Award-winning producer, activist and President of Tom Kirdahy Productions Tom Kirdahy; and actor, director, screenwriter, producer, playwright, author, philanthropist and Founder of Tyler Perry Studios Tyler Perry as they receive the Entertainment Community Fund Medal of Honor.
For photos of the honorees, click here.
The Annual Gala event that honors entertainment professionals working in film, television, theater, music and dance will be held at the New York Marriott Marquis (1535 Broadway) with 6 pm ET cocktails, followed by a 7 pm ET dinner and tribute. The evening will include special performances to be announced as guests come together to support the Fund’s programs that foster stability and resiliency and provide a safety net over the lifespan of members of the performing arts and entertainment industry nationwide.
“All year long, the Entertainment Community Fund provides services that address the unique needs of people who work in performing arts and entertainment, and we always look forward to our Annual Gala to celebrate those who work alongside us in this mission,” said Brian Stokes Mitchell, Chair of Board of Trustees of the Entertainment Community Fund. “It’s a privilege to recognize the achievements of this year’s Medal of Honor recipients–Glorya Kaufman, Alana Mayo, Tom Kirdahy and Tyler Perry–during our first gala officially as the Entertainment Community Fund, as we commemorate their dedication and support they provide to the industry.”
The Entertainment Community Fund Medal of Honor was inaugurated on May 9, 1910 when it was first presented to President William Howard Taft. The award was revived in 1958, and since 1992, when Shubert Organization President Bernard B. Jacobs was recognized, the award has been presented at an annual fundraising gala. Since then, dozens of leaders have been recognized with this high honor given to individuals and organizations that enrich the entertainment community. To view past honorees, visit entertainmentcommunity.org/gala-honorees-and-awardees.
Tickets to the benefit begin at $1,750 with tables available beginning at $15,000. For more information and special sponsorship opportunities in NYC, please contact 212-627-1000 or reach out to entertainmentcommunity@resevt.com. Visit the event page and purchase tickets at entertainmentcommunity.org/Gala2023.
ABOUT THE ENTERTAINMENT COMMUNITY FUND
The Entertainment Community Fund, formerly The Actors Fund, is a national human services organization that addresses the unique needs of people who work in performing arts and entertainment with services focused on health and wellness, career and life, and housing. Since 1882, the Fund has sought to ensure stability, encourage resiliency and be a safety net for those who shape our country’s cultural vibrancy. Learn more at entertainmentcommunity.org.
ABOUT GLORYA KAUFMAN
Born in Detroit, Michigan, Glorya’s love of dance began when she first danced standing on her father’s shoes before she could walk. This love was fostered in her teens when Glorya frequented jazz clubs during Detroit’s jazz heyday. Many of Glorya’s philanthropic endeavors evolved from her twin passions for dance and supportive care for others.
Glorya met and married building contractor Donald Bruce Kaufman in the early 1950s. They became partners in life and work. When Don died tragically in 1983, Glorya recovered from the trauma and loss of her lifetime partner by pouring her energies into philanthropy. She established the Glorya Kaufman Foundation, which enables Glorya to express her values and vision through a diverse portfolio of giving.
However, the crown jewel of Glorya’s passion for dance is inlaid into USC, the University of Southern California, where she worked tirelessly to help create the university’s school for dance in 2012: the USC Glorya Kaufman School of Dance.
Dance is merely one of Glorya’s great passions for the cultural arts in Los Angeles. She is a patron of the Los Angeles Music Center’s Glorya Kaufman Presents and a founding member of the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA), a patron of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and sits on the Board of Directors of the Geffen Playhouse. She is also a patron of New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C.
Glorya recently founded the Glorya Kaufman Performing Arts Center at Vista Del Mar in Los Angeles and in partnership with the Wende Museum, she is creating The Glorya Kaufman Creative Community Center that will bring education and culture to people who live throughout West Los Angeles.
Glorya’s concern for the health and well-being of young and old has been lifelong. In the 1980s, she provided seed money for the first center for women struggling with domestic violence in downtown Los Angeles. When the 1994 Earthquake destroyed Saint John’s Health Center in Santa Monica, she contributed to a new guest waiting room in the main floor after watching TV coverage of patients being removed from the hospital.
Glorya also joined forces with Dr. Leonard Apt of the Jules Stein Eye Institute at UCLA to start preschool mobile units that examined youngsters under the age of five in nursery schools in and around Los Angeles. After Dr. Apt’s death, the eye institute was awarded $4,100,000 to have these mobile units examine preschool children in and around Los Angeles over the course of five years. More than 90,000 children were seen and those who needed glasses were given glasses. This program is continuing.
She also started and supports the Glorya Kaufman Eye Clinic in Venice, CA, that examines eyes and gives free glasses to all who seek examinations and are in need for the last 30 or more years.
Believing in the enduring power of the arts to console, heal, create community, uplift and transform lives, Glorya is excited to help the Entertainment Community Fund (formerly The Actors Fund) to create a 71-seat theater, The Glorya Kaufman Performing Arts Theater, within The Hollywood Arts Collective. The Hollywood Arts Collective is a new affordable housing development and community arts center that embodies the Entertainment Community Fund vision, shared by Glorya: a world in which individuals contributing to our cultural vibrancy are supported, valued and economically secure.
ABOUT ALANA MAYO
As head of Orion Pictures, the veteran industry executive and producer Alana Mayo oversees the label’s day-to-day operations, including development, acquisitions, physical and post production. Orion Pictures, a division of MGM, an Amazon Company, is dedicated to authentic storytelling in film with a focus on developing, producing and acquiring feature films that amplify underrepresented voices, both in front of and behind the camera. While Orion is still in its infancy, Mayo has moved quickly to bring several high-profile projects to greenlight, including Billy Porter’s feature directorial debut Anything’s Possible, a coming-of-age story about a Trans teenager; Till which garnered Danielle Deadwyler a Leading Actress nomination at the 2023 EE BAFTA Film Awards for her portrayal of Mamie Till-Mobley, mother of Emmett Till; and Women Talking which earned Sarah Polley an Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay.
Upcoming Orion Pictures titles include Bottoms, a queer high school sex comedy from Emma Seligman and Rachel Sennott, the creative team behind the breakout indie hit, Shiva Baby; the Nia DaCosta written and directed feature adaptation of Hedda Gabler; a feature adaptation of Michelle Zauner’s famed New Yorker essay turned New York Times bestseller Crying in H Mart that will be directed by Will Sharpe; an adaptation of Colson Whitehead’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel The Nickel Boys starring Aunjanue Ellis; and an Untitled Cord Jefferson film based on the novel Erasure by Percival Everett starring Jeffery Wright, Tracee Ellis Ross, Erika Alexander, Sterling K. Brown and Issa Rae.
Prior to joining Orion Pictures, Mayo most recently served as head of production and development for Outlier Society, a multi-platform production and media company led by actor Michael B. Jordan, where she oversaw the company’s slate of films (in partnership with Warner Bros Studios) and television series (in partnership with Amazon Studios). While at Outlier Society, Mayo led the charge with Jordan to create opportunities for more equitable hiring in Hollywood, with the launch of a first-of-its-kind company-wide inclusion policy, in partnership Warner Media, with Just Mercy, based on the memoir of attorney, social justice activist and founder of the Equal Justice Initiative Bryan Stevenson, becoming the first film made under the new initiative.
In addition to Just Mercy, the slate of Outlier Society films projects overseen by Mayo included Paramount Pictures’ Without Remorse; a film adaptation of the fantasy novel Black Leopard; Red Wolf by acclaimed author Marlon James; an untitled original monster movie from Kong: Skull Island filmmaker Jordan Vogt-Roberts; and a WWII action drama The Liberators.
During Mayo’s tenure, Outlier Society co-produced the Primetime Emmy-nominated HBO Films adaptation of Fahrenheit 451, which netted Jordan a Producers Guild Award; 61 Street for AMC; the OWN drama series David Makes Man from Oscar-winning Moonlight co-writer Tarell Alvin McCraney; Raising Dion, which was one of Netflix’s most-streamed shows of 2019; the comedy feature Fashionably Black written by Emmy-nominated writer Robin Thede and Christa Gatewood at HBO Max; and the series Friday Black, created by critically-acclaimed writer Nana Adjei-Brenyah.
Previously, Mayo served as vice president of Production at Paramount Pictures, where she worked on films including A Quiet Place, directed by and starring John Krasinski; Annihilation, written and directed by Alex Garland and starring Natalie Portman; as well the critically-acclaimed Fences, directed by and starring Denzel Washington. In her previous role as Production Executive for the studio, she worked on the Academy Award® winning film The Big Short, directed by Adam McKay and starring Christian Bale, Ryan Gosling, Steve Carell and Brad Pitt; and 13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers Of Benghazi, directed by Michael Bay and starring John Krasinski and James Badge Dale, and the Academy Award® Best Picture nominee Selma.
Following her time at Paramount, Mayo worked with Vimeo as the company’s vice president and head of original development. In her role, Mayo helped strategize the creation of the video-streaming service’s SVOD platform with scripted, original television content.
ABOUT TOM KIRDAHY
Tom Kirdahy is a Tony and Olivier Award-winning producer whose projects have spanned Broadway, off-Broadway, the West End, national and international tours. He recently produced the first Broadway revival of August Wilson’s The Piano Lesson starring Samuel L. Jackson and directed by LaTanya Richardson Jackson. He is currently producing the upcoming musical New York, New York from legendary songwriting team John Kander and Fred Ebb, featuring additional lyrics by Lin-Manuel Miranda, an original story by David Thompson with Sharon Washington, and direction and choreography by Susan Stroman; the new play Grey House by Levi Holloway, starring Laurie Metcalf, Tatiana Maslany and Paul Sparks, with direction by Joe Mantello; the Broadway smash-hit Hadestown (8 Tony Awards, including Best Musical) and its national tour; and the off-Broadway revival of Little Shop of Horrors (Drama Desk, Drama League and Outer Critics Circle Awards, Best Revival).
As an attorney and activist, Kirdahy has devoted his life to the cause of protecting and expanding the rights of LGBT+ people. He was married to the great American playwright Terrence McNally from 2003 until his passing in 2020. In celebration of the Supreme Court's 2015 decision to legalize same-sex marriage in all 50 states, they renewed their vows at New York City Hall and were pictured on the front page of the New York Times. Before his theatrical career, Kirdahy was a social justice lawyer and spent nearly two decades providing free legal services to people living with HIV/AIDS. He developed HIV projects at Gay Men’s Health Crisis, Bronx AIDS Services and Nassau-Suffolk Law Services. Kirdahy currently serves on the Executive Board of Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS, and for many years he served on the Executive Committee of the NYC LGBT Center. His activism has guided his producing: Matthew Lopez’s epic two-part play The Inheritance explores intergenerational queer communion and the devastating impact of AIDS; Kirdahy produced The Inheritance in the West End and on Broadway (where it won 4 Tony Awards, including Best Play). Kirdahy’s production of Terrence McNally’s Mothers and Sons marked the first time a legally wed gay couple was seen on a Broadway stage.
Other Broadway credits include Terrence McNally’s Frankie & Johnny in the Clair de Lune starring Audra McDonald and Michael Shannon (2 Tony nominations), notable as the first Broadway production to employ an intimacy director; the global sensation Anastasia; the box office record-breaking It’s Only a Play starring Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick; The Visit starring Chita Rivera (5 Tony nominations). Select West End credits include The Inheritance (4 Olivier Awards), The Jungle, Edward Albee’s The Goat, or Who Is Sylvia? Select off-Broadway credits: The White Chip, The Jungle, White Rabbit Red Rabbit. Additional Tony nominations: Mothers and Sons, After Midnight, Ragtime, Master Class. Kirdahy received the 2019 Robert Whitehead Award for Outstanding Achievement in Commercial Theater Producing, and in 2020 he received the Miss Lilly Award in recognition of his advocacy for women in a male-dominated industry.
ABOUT TYLER PERRY
Tyler Perry is an actor, director, screenwriter, producer, playwright, author and philanthropist. He started his career writing plays, many of which became the inspiration for his films, including the legendary Madea. The Madea franchise has grossed over $1 billion at the box office and Tyler’s entertainment enterprise has raked in over $2 billion. Tyler has created 17 shows, 24 feature films and over 1,600 episodes of television. In 2019, Perry celebrated the historic opening of Tyler Perry Studios in Atlanta. He received the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award at the 2021 Oscars and the Governors Award at the 2020 Emmys. In September 2022, Mr. Perry released his 27-year in the making passion project, A Jazzman’s Blues, with Netflix where the film spent several weeks on the US and global top ten list. His latest collaboration with Netflix, Six Triple Eight, tells the inspiring true story of the only all-Black, all-female battalion during World War II, and features an all-star cast including Oprah Winfrey, Ebony Obsidian and Kerry Washington, who is also an executive producer of the film.
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