I'm really happy to be here tonight. I know that many of you enjoy addressing theatres full of people a whole lot more than I do... but I was honored to be invited to speak, and of course I'm delighted to be able to participate in publicly embarrassing Rex like this. Because I know how much he loves this!

When I think about why Rex is being honored, I think of his absolute commitment to the notion of what's possible. I found a great quote a while ago from Thomas Edison that made me think of Rex - " A lot of people miss opportunity because it comes dressed in overalls and looks a lot like work." Really, I think for many of us, opportunity has been dressed in blue denim, and looked a lot like Rex.

I met Rex in 1990, I think - I was a last minute emergency substitute scenic artist for the Group Theatre's production of "Alfred Steiglitz Loves O'Keefe." I was invited back to paint the set for one of the last shows the Group did in the Ethnic Cultural Theatre space, Dear Miss Elena. While I'd done the first project at home on my kitchen floor, this one involved actually being in the theatre with the cast and crew and designers and everyone day after day…and that was it. I fell. I fell totally in love with the Group and everybody in it, and my life was transformed forever after. I'd found my true home. I hold Rex entirely responsible for this! I also have to hold him responsible for my management career, since he was the one who recruited me into arts administration by lobbying for me to be The Group's first ever Company Manager…which I was very happily, through the end of 1997.

This award is for "Sustained Achievement." The word sustained means more than an accumulation of achievements over time to me - I don't think this is just some sort of reward for sheer endurance and stamina, although it could be… I've been thinking about it in a different way. Sustained achievement exists beyond the end of any given project, and endures into the future. It has a life of its own beyond time. Though Rex's list of accomplishments so far is indeed impressive, I think that the legacy he's been building is really about the work itself, about the act of working with and for others.

It's always been about the work with Rex. Work is the medium and the message and the metaphor, it's the path and the destination. But knowing what the real work IS is Rex's special magic.

At The Group, Rex pointed without fail to the mission as surely as a good compass finds true north every time. I've seen him locate the truth in the murkiest of circumstances, and hold to it through some extraordinary storms and dark times. He talked to me about feeling like "a voice in the wilderness" sometimes, and I know that it was often an act of sheer faith and will for him to keep on going at all, but somehow he did, and it made all the difference in the world.

And there's magic in that. I've experienced the way this faith and will can transform the attitude of a group of people who've decided they absolutely can't go on. In the midst of a completely impossible situation, where everyone was tired, or frustrated, or angry, or didn't get how it was all possibly going to come together, I've seen Rex simply get up at some point and start working on whatever it was we'd all just decided to give up on. He'd just start doing the work. And then an amazing thing would happen - we would notice that we actually did still care.

It wasn't always from some enlightened point of view mind you - MAYBE we cared about the work, but more often than not we cared about how incredibly tired Rex looked (but he was doing it anyway, damn him), or how if we sat there and allowed him to lift that large object he was heading for by himself he'd certainly rupture something, and who wants to live with that, or maybe we were pissed off that he wouldn't stop, or simply embarrassed to have him make a phone call it really wasn't his to make.

Whatever it was, before we even really knew what we were doing we'd get up too, and start working. And then of course, it was all possible again, whatever it was. Finishing the set, building the new space, building the new lobby for the second time, making payroll, finding someone to run lights and sound for no money, talking Equity into doing us one more favor (my personal specialty). And you'd get through it all, and accomplish what needed accomplishing, and there Rex would be to grab you up and give you one of those phenomenal Rex hugs, as proud of you for getting through it as if the whole thing had been your idea in the first place.

So, this is where I think Rex's real sustained - and ongoing - achievement lies. In this thing that is the most precious of all - the engagement of our hearts, and minds, and souls in the work that we do and the lives that we live. This is what is sustained over time, beyond buildings and theatres and seasons and beyond politics. This is what creates change in the world, one pair of hands at a time. I see it as a legacy of spirit and purpose for the whole theatre community, created by this example of how Rex chooses to live his life - with a deep, abiding belief in the necessity of art, and the seriously crazy business of being an artist - caring deeply, investing every act with purpose and meaning. This is what Rex has built with us and for us, and what we celebrate.

There is a story that I've heard.
There once was a very good man.
He worked hard every day, with all of his might and all of his heart.
He did the best he could in his way to make the world a better place,
but there were days when he felt that it was all beyond hope, and just too much for him.
One night when he was especially tired, and things were especially hard - perhaps another war had started,
or the funding for his next theatre project had disappeared - he stood before God
with his heart completely breaking from all of the injustice and unfairness and despair in the world.
He simply couldn't bear it anymore.
"Dear God," he cried out, "look at all of the anguish and hopelessness here!
Why don't you help?
Why don't you do something??"
And God replied quite simply, "But I did, Rex. I sent you."

So I'll end with that, and a very heartfelt thank you to Rex; from me, and from all of the members of our Group Family who couldn't be here tonight to tell you themselves.

Thank you.