NEW YORK, NY, February 15, 2019 /24-7PressRelease/ -- Marquis Who's Who, the world's premier publisher of biographical profiles, is proud to present Joanie Fritz Zosike with the Albert Nelson Marquis Lifetime Achievement Award. Joanie Fritz Zosike (born Joan Margaret Hieger) is noted for artistic excellence, leadership, versatility, and integrity in her field. As in all Marquis Who's Who biographical volumes, individuals profiled are selected on the basis of current reference value. Factors such as position, noteworthy accomplishments, visibility, and prominence in a field are all taken into account during the selection process.
Inspired by her parents, classical musicians who played with the Pittsburgh Symphony, Joanie Fritz Zosike began singing in public at age 3 and was a serious student of classical vocal repertoire by age 13. Since 1990, she channeled her professional experience and theatre education at New York University into her acting for over 25 years with The Living Theatre (TLT), the internationally renowned company that was in the vanguard of avant-garde, experimental theatre from 1949 to the present. With TLT, she acted in the anti-death penalty street action, "Not In My Name," the seminal "Mysteries and Smaller Pieces," "Body of God," "Humanity," and "Utopia," among many others, working closely with co-founder Judith Malina (1926-2015). Ms. Zosike has written half a dozen plays including "You Told Me That the Carousel Was Crystal," "12 Steps to Murder," "RelationShifts," and most recently, "Noah's Arc" (2018).
She has collaborated with other art practitioners including Lee Negrin, Tamar Rogoff, Brookie Maxwell, Coop Theatre East (COTE), Teatro Alfieri di Asti, and musician Patrick Grant, Lisa Karrer, Marie-Claire Picher, Butch Morris, Jackie McLean, Kevin Ellington Mingus, Michele Smith, Edward Rollin, Rosa Teresa Castro-Vargas, and Jimmie James. With Hanon Reznikov (1950-2008, co-director of The Living Theatre after Julian Beck's death), she wrote "And Then The Heavens Closed," performed at The Jewish Museum in New York City, for which she received a grant from the Foundation of Jewish Culture. She is the current director of DADAnewyork, a DADA-surrealist theatre company, founded 6 in 1986 by original Joffrey Ballet member John W. Wilson. She served on the Board of Directors of the New York City People's Life Fund, on the production committee of Theater for the New City's Annual Lower East Side Festival of the Arts (LES), and on the steering committee of Theaters Against War (THAW). She is also affiliated with The Secret City, Girl Be Heard, and the New York State Theatre Alliance, and served from 1990-1993 as Managing Director of The Living Theatre.
She is co-founder and co-director of Action Racket Theatre (ART) with longtime friend and business partner Lois Kagan Mingus, founded in 1989, offering programs through the New York Public Library, Brooklyn Children's Museum, Head Start, United Adult Ministries, and other institutional venues. Zosike and Mingus performed and gave workshops at CenterLight (formerly Beth Abraham) Adult Day Health Care Center for six years, working with disabled actors attending the ADHC. They are currently working on a documentary about this project. In 2018, Ms. Zosike collaborated with 25 other artists in a month-long event, Against Competition/Towards Mutual Aid, a Celebration and Symposium of non-competitive collective creation in the arts, spearheaded by ABC No Rio (in Exile) and Flux Factory in Long Island City.
Ms. Zosike holds a Bachelor of Arts in Theater from the Gallatin School of Individualized Study, New York University, where she was on the Dean's List from 1979-1981, and received the Founder's Circle Award for Scholarship in 1981 and an Action-Vista Grant. During this period, she developed her play, "Inside," for which she received a fellowship from Edward Albee's The Barn in Montauk. It was later produced at American Theater of Actors in New York as part of The Women's Project.
Ms. Zosike performed in the Festival des Politisches Liedes in the former East Berlin and the Francofolies Blagoevgrad Festival in Bulgaria. With The Living Theatre and as a solo artist, she performed and gave workshops in Bulgaria, Spain, Italy, Germany, Portugal, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, and Ecuador. She has performed extensively in children's theatre in productions including "Lily Frog and Friends" (co-author David Steven Rappoport), "My Shoestrings Won't Stay Tied" (co-authored with Larry Pellegrini), "The Magical Castle of Now," "Words From the Melting Pot," "Alice in Wonderland." (13th Street Playhouse), and "Alice au Pays des Mervailles" (SoHo Playhouse).
Throughout her career, Ms. Zosike has never limited herself to one particular medium. In addition to her work in theatre, she has leant her singing and poetic voice to WBAI Radio's "Women on the Edge of Time" "Cat Radio Café," "The Next Hour," and "Radio Unnamable," and sang lead on the closing theme of "The Healers of 400 Parnassus," a 1999 AIDS documentary. She has contributed to various independent presses and online journals, including Three Rooms Press, Silver Birch Press and Levure Literraire. She is featured in 15 editions of Who's Who in America, 10 editions of Who's Who in the East and five editions of Who's Who of American Women.
In recognition of her contribution to the arts and the Marquis Who's Who community, Joanie Fritz Zosike has been featured on the Albert Nelson Marquis Lifetime Achievement website. Please visit www.ltachievers.com for more information about this honor.
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