Anna K. Jacobs Wins 2016 Billie Burke Ziegfeld Award

The Ziegfeld Club has announced that Anna K. Jacobs will receive the 2016 Billie Burke Ziegfeld Award.

The award will provide Jacobs with a grant of $10,000 and a year of professional mentorship from mentors including Tony Award-winning producer Barbara Whitman. Zoe Sarnak and Shaina Taub are the honorable mentions chosen by the awards panel. Recipients will be honored during a November 7 reception that will feature distinguished speaker Jeanine Tesori and a special musical performance by Masi Asare, who is the recipient of last year’s award.

The reception will also honor teaching artist Cecilia Smith, who was chosen to receive the first annual Liz Swados Inspiration Grant. In collaboration with The Ziegfeld Club, Oscar-nominated actress Diane Lane created the Liz Swados Inspiration Grant for NYC-based female educators vested in music, in honor of the composer.

Jacobs is a Brooklyn-based composer and lyricist from Sydney, Australia, whose musicals include POP! (Yale Rep), Harmony, Kansas, and Stella and the Moon Man. She is currently developing a musical adaptation of the 2007 Sundance Award-winning indie horror film, Teeth, and Echo, a three-woman reimagining of the Echo and Narcissus myth. Jacobs is a Musical Theatre Factory artist in residence and holds an M.F.A. in Musical Theatre Writing from the New York University Tisch School of the Arts.