Mary Damiano

Veteran South Florida arts journalist and critic Mary Damiano will receive the Carbonell Awards’ Charlie Cinnamon Award. The honor recognizes a person who contributes significantly to the support of the arts in the region and to the Carbonell Awards program.

The award’s namesake is the legendary press agent who promoted the arts in South Florida for more than six decades.

Damiano is the managing editor of the Biscayne Times, theater reviewer for The Palm Beach Daily News, and writer for Miami Artburst, REimagine magazine, and The New Pelican newspaper. She is an award-winning writer, editor, and theater critic who has covered the South Florida arts scene since 2000.

Damiano has had more than 3,000 articles published in dozens of publications, including the Miami Times, Miami Herald, Sun-Sentinel, New Times, South Florida Gay News, She Magazine, The Palm Beach Post, BroadwayWorld.com, and MiamiARTzine.com, of which she is the founding editor, shepherding the online arts magazine through its first 100 issues. In addition, Damiano has been a Carbonell judge since 2004. She served as panel coordinator for the Carbonell Awards from 2008 until 2014 and was managing director of the organization from 2014 until 2020.

Damiano has also served as vice president of the South Florida Theatre League and vice president of the Oakland Park Art & Culture Board. She believes her greatest accomplishment is getting paid to be entertained.

In nominating Damiano for this award, Zoetic Stage Co-founder Stuart Meltzer proposed that she “is long overdue for some recognition for her contributions as an arts journalist and Carbonell judge. Mary’s commitment to theatrical journalism has kept her in print for as long as I’ve been working professionally in this community. Her sense of humor, her heart, her eagerness to celebrate every theatre company, and her love of what she does is an example of longevity and survival.”

Previous Winners of the Charlie Cinnamon Award are: Veteran reviewer and founder of FloridaTheaterOnStage.com Bill Hirschman (2023); longtime critic and Carbonell judge Hap Erstein (2022); Jennifer Sierra-Grobbelaar, Director of Marketing at the Broward Center for the Performing Arts (2019); Tony Finstrom, playwright and founder of the Silver Palm Awards, (2018); and longtime arts patron and Carbonell judge Jerome J. (Jerry) Cohen (2017).

The Carbonells has previously announced the following special awards for 2025:

The George Abbott Award for Outstanding Achievement in the Arts went to William Hayes and Sue Ellen Beryl, co-founders of Palm Beach Dramaworks.

The Jan McArt Ward for Outstanding Achievement by a Small Theatre went to New City Players.

The Vinnette Carroll Award for Advancing Diversity, Equality and Inclusion in South Florida Theatre went to Miami New Drama Co-Founder and Artistic Director Michel Hausmann.

Recipients of the following awards remain to be announced:

The Ruth Foreman Award – Aug. 19

The Bill Hindman Award – Aug. 26

The Howard Kleinberg Award – Sept. 2

The Bill von Maurer Award – Sept. 9

120 Carbonell Award Finalists in 20 Categories – Sept. 16

This year’s Carbonell Awards ceremony will begin at 7:30 p.m. Monday, Nov. 17 at FAU’s University Theatre in Boca Raton. The November gala will be produced and directed by Andrew Kato, Producing Artistic Director/Chief Executive of the Maltz Jupiter Theatre, with Caryl Fantel as Music Director. Tickets for the ceremony and after party are $45 and will go on public sale in mid-September.

The Carbonell Awards fosters the artistic growth of professional theater in South Florida by celebrating the excellence and diversity of theater artists, providing scholarships, and building audience appreciation and civic pride by highlighting achievements of the region’s theater community.

More than 20 professional theater companies in Broward, Miami-Dade and Palm Beach Counties participate in the awards process every year. The Carbonell Awards also celebrate the accomplishments of local artistic leaders by presenting various Special Awards.

Along with New York’s Drama Desk and Chicago’s Joseph Jefferson Awards, the Carbonell Awards are among the nation’s oldest regional arts awards and predate others, including Washington, D.C.’s Helen Hayes Awards. The Carbonell Awards are named after the internationally renowned sculptor Manuel Carbonell. He designed the signature solid bronze and marble award given annually to Carbonell Award winners. Over nearly half a century, the Carbonell family has donated more than $250,000 in awards. For more information, visit www.carbonellawards.org.