WP Theater’s Annual Gala 2026
We are thrilled to announce this year’s WP Theater Gala taking place on Monday May 11, 2026 at The Edison Ballroom.
The WP Gala is our biggest party and fundraiser of the year, celebrating our visionary mission and our remarkable honorees – exemplary Women+ artists, activists, philanthropists, and leaders in the arts and business. The 2026 Gala is chaired by Board Members LAURA EASON and RACHEL SUSSMAN, with THE MCJ AMELIOR FOUNDATION, LISA TIMMEL & DAVID MARKUS and BARBARA WHITMAN as this year’s Gala Vice-Chairs.
We are proud to highlight our honorees’ astounding accomplishments and toast to nearly 50 years of WP as the home and premier launching pad for some of the most influential Women+ theater artists and advocates today. This year we are honoring legendary multi award-winning film, television, and theater producer, DEBRA MARTIN CHASE; NINA ESSMAN, NANCY GIBBS, & MARCIA GOLDBERG, founders of powerhouse Broadway General Management Company, 321 THEATRICAL MANAGEMENT; and two-time OBIE-winning and Tony-nominated director, writer, & performer, WHITNEY WHITE.
We can’t wait to celebrate the evening, led by our brilliant hosts – actor, author, activist and host, BUSY PHILLIPS (Girls5Eva, Mean Girls) and actor and writer, JEN TULLOCK (Severance, Perry Mason). The gala will feature cocktails, dinner, and awards, and special appearances and exclusive performances from today’s brightest Broadway stars! Stay tuned for more details coming soon!
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ABOUT THE HONOREES
Debra Martin Chase – Four-time Tony Award-winning and three-time Emmy Award-nominated producer, Debra Martin Chase, is an entertainment industry icon and trailblazer as the first Black female producer to have a deal at any major studio. She is also the first Black woman to produce a film that grossed over $100 million. To date, her films have grossed over a half billion dollars at the box office.
Chase’s work has garnered Academy, Emmy, Golden Globe, SAG, BET, and NAACP Image Award nominations, a Peabody Award, a Critics Choice Award and four Tony Awards. Martin Chase Productions has had an overall deal with Universal Television, a division of the NBCUniversal Television Group, since 2017. It previously had one with The Walt Disney Company from 2001 to 2016. Prior to that, Chase ran Whitney Houston’s BrownHouse Productions from 1995 to 2000 and Mundy Lane Entertainment, Denzel Washington’s production company, from 1992 to 1995.
Chase gained widespread recognition as the Producer behind popular films such as The Princess Diaries, The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, and The Cheetah Girls, and for executive producing the TV productions Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Cinderella and CBS’ The Equalizer. She also produced the movie Harriet, which received Academy Award nominations for Cynthia Erivo for Best Actress and for Best Song. Chase produced True Spirit which debuted on Netflix in February 2023 on the Top 10 lists in the U.S. and 58 countries. She produced with Lena Waithe a HBO documentary on the iconic Mary Tyler Moore, which was nominated for a 2023 Emmy for Best Documentary, a Producers Guild Award, and won the Critics Choice Award for Best Archival Documentary.
In 2022 Chase co-produced, in partnership with Marc Platt, the Broadway production of the Pulitzer Prize-winning musical A Strange Loop, which won the Tony Awards for Best Musical and Best Book. She also co-produced the 2022 Broadway revival of the Pulitzer Prize-winning play, Suzan-Lori Parks’ Topdog/Underdog, which won the Tony for Best Revival of a Play. In 2024, Chase co-produced two musicals – the original musical The Outsiders, based upon the beloved novel by S.E. Hinton and the classic movie directed by Francis Ford Coppola, which won four Tony Awards, including Best Musical and Best Director of a Musical, and Illinoise, which was nominated for Best Musical and won the Tony for Best Choreography. In 2025, she co-produced the stage adaptation of Death Becomes Her, based on the cult classic film directed by Robert Zemeckis, which received 10 Tony nominations, including Best Musical, and won the award for Best Costume Design. She also produced Purpose, which won the 2025 Pulitzer Prize for Drama and Tony Awards for Best Play and Best Featured Actress. She is currently one of the co-producers of the stage musical adaptation of Prince’s legendary film and album Purple Rain, and the off-Broadway revival of The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee.
Her numerous awards and honors include Ebony magazine’s 150 Most Influential African Americans, Black Enterprise magazine’s Ten Most Bankable African American Movie Producers in Hollywood (where Chase was the only woman on the list), The Trumpet Award’s Entertainment Award, the African American Film Critics Association’s Ashley Boone Award, The Vanguard in Entertainment Award from the Fashion Institute Of Technology, and the Shot Caller Award at Black Girls Rock!, the nationally televised award show honoring women of color. She was also awarded a prestigious Ford Foundation grant to develop several projects focused upon social justice, diversity and inclusion. In 2021 and 2024 Chase was included in the Variety 500, an index of the 500 most influential business leaders shaping the global media industry.
She is a graduate of the Harvard Law School and Mount Holyoke College. The latter has an anonymously endowed chair of film, television, and theatre in her name and has awarded her an honorary doctorate.
She is a member of the Motion Picture Academy, where she serves on the Producers Executive Committee, the Television Academy, and the Broadway League, where she serves on the Tony Management Committee.
321 Theatrical Management – Nina Essman, Nancy Gibbs, and Marcia Goldberg, founders of 321 Theatrical Management, manage, oversee, and maintain Broadway shows, Off-Broadway shows, National Tours, and International Productions, and have been for more than 25 years.
Their current roster includes Wicked (Worldwide); The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee (Off Broadway); Death Becomes Her; The Outsiders on Broadway (Tony Award for Best Musical) and on tour, and the Kimberly Akimbo tour.
Past credits include Purpose (Tony Award for Best Play); Kimberly Akimbo (Tony Award for Best Musical); Gutenberg! The Musical!; Suzan-Lori Parks’ Topdog/Underdog (Tony Award for Best Revival of a Play); A Strange Loop (Tony Award for Best Musical); Is This A Room; Dana H.; What the Constitution Means to Me; The SpongeBob Musical; War Paint; Oh, Hello on Broadway; Fully Committed (Broadway revival and original Off-Broadway); Fun Home (Tony Award for Best Musical); If/Then; Peter and the Starcatcher; Bring It On; Sister Act; Traces; Next to Normal; The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee (Broadway); The Vagina Monologues; Man of La Mancha; The Graduate; I Love You, You’re Perfect; and Bat Boy.
Whitney White – Tony Award nominee, Obie Award and Lilly Award-winning director, writer, and performer. Broadway: Liberation, Jaja’s African Hair Braiding, The Last Five Years. Upcoming: School Girls; Or, The African Mean Girls Play. Other: All Is But Fantasy (Royal Shakespeare Company), Walden (Second Stage), Jordans (The Public), Saturday Church (NYTW), The Secret Life of Bees (The Almeida, UK), The Spectacularly Lamentable Trial of Miz Martha Washington (Steppenwolf), Soft (MCC), On Sugarland (New York Theatre Workshop, Lucille Lortel and Drama Desk nominations, Outstanding Direction), Semblance (NYTW), The Amen Corner (Shakespeare Theatre Company), Our Dear Dead Drug Lord (WP Theater, Second Stage), What to Send Up When It Goes Down (The Movement Theatre Company, Woolly Mammoth, A.R.T., The Public Theater).
Staff writer: I’m a Virgo (Amazon Studios). Writer/performer of Macbeth in Stride (A.R.T., Elliot Norton Award for Outstanding Musical Performance by an Actress). Recipient of the Herb Alpert Award, Jerome Fellowship, Susan Stroman Directing Award. Part of the Rolex Protegé and Mentorship Arts Initiative. MFA Acting: Brown University/Trinity Rep, BA: Northwestern University.
ABOUT THE HOSTS
Busy Philipps is a New York Times best-selling author, actor, activist, writer, and host of the new series, Busy This Week, which she executive produces with Caissie St. Onge and Michael Gleason.
Philipps is best known from her series of iconic television roles such as Kim Kelly on the beloved series, Freaks and Geeks, from Judd Apatow and Paul Feig; Audrey Liddell on Dawson’s Creek; and Dr. Hope Bobeck on ER. Philipps spent six seasons starring opposite Courteney Cox on the hit comedy, Cougar Town, for which she won the Critics’ Choice Award for Best Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series. Philipps can most recently be seen on the critically acclaimed Netflix comedy series, Girls5Eva, executive produced by Tina Fey and starring opposite Sara Bareilles, Renée Elise Goldsberry, and Paula Pell.
Philipps recently returned as a late-night talk show host on the new series, Busy This Week. Season 1 premiered in May 2024 on QVC+. Season 2 premiered on May 21, 2025. The show features celebrity guest interviews and laugh-out-loud moments, in addition to personal stories and Philipps’ favorite curated shopping finds. The show has been picked up for a second season. This marks her return to late-night following her previous series, Busy Tonight, which ran on E! from 2018-2019, and was executive produced by Philipps with Tina Fey and Caissie St. Onge.
Upcoming, she will be seen in the horror-comedy, Horrified, starring alongside Julie Benz, Ron Perlman, and Jim Rash. The film marks the feature directorial debut of Michael Zara, writer on TNT’s Major Crimes.
In 2018, Philipps released a collection of humorous autobiographical essays in her book, This Will Only Hurt A Little, which was a New York Times best seller in its first week. The book offers unfiltered and candid stories and was published by Simon and Schuster’s Touchstone division. In 2020, Philipps launched a podcast called Busy Philipps is Doing Her Best, with her creative partner, Caissie St. Onge. The show features conversations between the duo and their guests, who reflect on times in their lives when a setback led to better opportunities.
On the big screen, Philipps was most recently seen in Paramount’s feature adaptation of the Broadway hit Mean Girls: The Musical, in the iconic role of Mrs. George, alongside Renee Rapp, Tina Fey, and Jenna Fischer. She can be seen in the STX romantic comedy, I Feel Pretty, opposite Amy Schumer and Michelle Williams, and directed by Abby Kohn and Marc Silverstein. She appeared in Joel Edgerton’s thriller, The Gift, alongside Jason Bateman and Rebecca Hall. Additional film credits include: Kat Coiro’s A Case of You, opposite Justin Long, Peter Dinklage, and Sam Rockwell; Douglas McGrath’s, I Don’t Know How She Does It, alongside Sarah Jessica Parker; Ken Kwapis’, He’s Just Not That Into You; Paul Weiland’s, Made of Honor with Patrick Dempsey and Michelle Monaghan; and the cult classic, White Chicks, with the Wayans Brothers.
In January 2024, Philipps was announced as the newest Artist Ambassador for the American Civil Liberties Union to advocate for reproductive freedom. This follows years of on-the-ground advocacy, from testifying before congress in 2019 on behalf of Planned Parenthood to working with the ACLU in states like Ohio in the successful ballot measure to protect reproductive freedom in the state’s constitution and calling on other artists and entertainers to join her in actions to protect bodily autonomy. Philipps was born in Oak Park, Illinois and raised in Scottsdale, Arizona. She attended Loyola Marymount University and lived in Los Angeles until 2020. Philipps currently resides in New York City with her two daughters and her golden doodle, Gina.
Jen Tullock is an Award nominated actress and writer known for her role in Emmy-nominated Apple TV+ series, Severance, from director and executive producer Ben Stiller. Tullock is a series regular on the show, portraying Devon—the sister and confidant of Adam Scott’s Mark—who becomes entangled in the show’s central mysteries and brings authenticity and emotional intimacy to her scenes. The series has garnered 47 Emmy nominations, including the first Outstanding Drama Series nomination in Apple TV+ history, two SAG Nominations and six Critics Choice Nominations. Named Apple+ “most watched” series ever, the series was just picked up for a third season.
Tullock most recently concluded her run in the critically acclaimed Off-Broadway solo play, Nothing Can Take You From the Hand of God. Co-written with Frank Winters, the play is based on Tullock’s upbringing as a gay kid in the evangelical South. Operating multiple cameras and live-looping systems, Tullock’s performance as a full cast of characters has earned high praise from The New York Times and New York Magazine.
Tullock starred in two seasons of HBO’s noir drama series Perry Mason. Her character, Anita, is a successful screenwriter and the rare woman who’s made a name for herself in a man’s world. Stylish, confident, and witty, Anita crashes into Della’s (Juliet Rylance) world and shows her a side of life and love that she’s been missing.
In November 2022, Tullock co-starred opposite Ryan Reynolds, Will Ferrell, and Octavia Spencer in the Apple TV+ holiday musical film, Spirited, a revisionist take on A Christmas Carol, with new songs from Oscar-winning songwriting duo Pasek and Paul.
Tullock’s recent film work includes the film, Before You Know It, which premiered in Competition at Sundance in 2019. Jen co-wrote the film with frequent collaborator Hannah Pearl Utt and they both starred alongside Judith Light and Mandy Patinkin. She also appeared alongside Dave Franco and Abbi Jacobson in the Netflix original film, 6 Balloons, and starred in Sam Benenati’s viral short film, Red Light (a must watch!), in which she plays all eight characters.
Originally from Kentucky, Tullock now makes her home in New York.
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