Events & Annual Gala

Robert A. Caro is one of our nation’s most acclaimed and honored authors, “the greatest political biographer of our times” according to the London Sunday Times. For his biographies of Robert Moses (The Power Broker) and Lyndon Johnson (The Years of Lyndon Johnson) he has twice won the Pulitzer Prize, twice won the National Book Award, three times won the National Book Critics Circle Award, and has also won virtually every other major literary honor. In 2010 President Barack Obama awarded Caro the National Humanities Medal. In 2019 Caro published a memoir, Working.

“Caro has changed the art of political biography,” Nicholas Von Hoffman has said. His work has been called “a study of the corruption which power exerts on those who wield it to sit beside Tacitus and his emperors, Shakespeare and his kings (Baltimore Evening Sun); “a majestic, even Shakespearean drama about the interplay of power and personality” (Justin Kaplan), and “the best presidential biography the country has ever seen” (NPR).

Born and raised in New York City, Caro graduated from Princeton, was later a Nieman Fellow at Harvard and an investigative reporter for Newsday. He lives with his wife, the writer Ina Caro, in New York City, where he is at work on the fifth and final volume of The Years of Lyndon Johnson.

Leonard Tow, PhD, is the founder and chairman of The Tow Foundation and chief executive officer of New Century Holdings. With a bachelor’s degree from Brooklyn College and doctoral and master’s degrees from Columbia University, Dr. Tow served as the chairman and chief executive officer of Citizens Utilities and founder of Century Communications and Centennial Cellular. He has taught at Columbia Business School, Brooklyn College, Hunter College, and the New York University School of Business. His honorary degrees include Doctorates of Humane Letters from Brooklyn College, City University of New York and University of New Haven.

Dr. Tow’s current board service includes Lincoln Center Theater and Educational Broadcasting Corporation. He is a trustee of the Brooklyn College Foundation and the Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University, as well as a director of AMC Networks.

The Tow Foundation, led by its president Emily Tow, was established in 1988 by Leonard and Claire Tow and promotes wellness and access to opportunities so that individuals and communities can thrive. It has a long history of supporting visionary leaders and nonprofit organizations, as well as providing playwright residencies and director fellowships at major theatres in New York.

Theatre for a New Audience’s Life in Art Award honors the achievements of individuals whose support for theatre has set the standard for leadership and generosity, and whose example has inspired others to ensure that theatre remains a vibrant part of our cultural life.  The award, a signed giclée print by Milton Glaser, is named for the autobiography by the great theatre artist Constantin Stanislavski, My Life in Art.