Broadway composer, lyricist, and director Jason Robert Brown was honored with The Museum of the City of New York 2018 Louis Auchincloss Prize. The prize is presented to writers and artists whose work is inspired by and enhances the five boroughs of New York City. Brown is a Tony award-winning composer, lyricist, conductor, arranger, orchestrator, director, and performer. His epochal Off-Broadway musical The Last Five Years was cited as one of Time Magazine’s 10 Best of 2001 and his 1995 theatrical song cycle Songs for a New World received a major revival at New York’s City Center last summer.

The evening’s presentation included a special performance by Jason Robert Brown, featuring Betsy Wolfe and Norm Lewis and highlighted objects from the Museum’s extensive Theater Collection, which documents theatrical performance in New York City from 1785 to present day.

Guests included Chairman of the Museum of the City of New York, James G. Dinan and event Chair Tracey Pontarelli, Honoree Jason Robert Brown and wife Georgia Stitt, Cynthia Foster Curry and Bernard Curry, Sondra Gilman and Celso Gonzalez-Falla, Blair Husain, Cindy and Stephen Ketchum, Norm Lewis, Simone Mailman, Claudia Overstrom, Betsy Pitts, Betsy Wolfe, Lisa Abel, Robert Finger, Budd Goldman, Elizabeth Graziolo, David Guin, Bruno Quinson, Art Rosner, Alan Siegel, Daryl Brown Uber and Bruce Uber, and Peter Volandes.