The 2023 Lifetime Achievement recipient is Lenore DeKoven, whose career as director, author, producer and educator has spanned both east and west coasts and includes theatre, film and television. 

DeKoven has held executive positions at the Mark Taper Forum, Los Angeles; the N.Y. Shakespeare Festival; Lincoln Center Repertory Theater; the National Repertory Theatre; and Roundabout Theatre in New York, and was former Chairperson of the Board of Theatre West, L.A. In addition to directing many plays in both New York City and L.A., she has been a free-lance director on ANOTHER WORLD and TEXAS, NBC TV and produced a pilot for a series written by Charles Fuller and starring Ossie Davis and Maureen Stapleton for NBC. 

DeKoven was a grant recipient of the American Film Institute’s Directing Workshop for Women, directing the film TAPS, TREMORS AND TIME STEPS starring Betty Garrett. DeKoven is the Artistic Director of OUR WORKSHOP EAST, a development gym for actors, writers and directors. 

A member of Columbia University’s Graduate Film Division for twenty years, DeKoven has also taught on the faculties of UCLA’s Theatre Department and NYU’s Theatre and Film Divisions. She has conducted master classes in New York City, at the AFI in L.A., at FAMU in Prague, as well as in Montreal, Ottawa and Cologne. 

She has written two short plays, both of which have been produced in short play festivals in New York. She has been a Vice President and member of the Board of the League of Professional Theatre Women, is a Special Adviser for the N.Y. Coalition of Professional Women in the Arts & Media and was co-founder and former Vice President of N.Y. Women In Film and TV. She is listed in WHO’S WHO IN ENTERTAINMENT.