Mat Diafos Sweeney has been named the 2020 Dorothy and Richard E. Sherwood Award winner. (photo by Ryan Miller/Capture Imaging)

The Center Theatre Group has announced that Mat Diafos Sweeney is the recipient of the 2020 Dorothy and Richard E. Sherwood Award.

Given in memory of Dorothy and Richard E. Sherwood, the $10,000 award cultivates innovative theater artists working in Los Angeles who push formal and aesthetic boundaries and demonstrate dedication to improving their artistic fields. Two additional finalists, Sigrid Gilmer and Alexandra Meda, will each receive a $1,000 honorarium.

Sweeney is an Ovation Award-winning artist from Los Angeles. His practice includes directing, choreographing, designing and composing music, and writing and collaging texts to make new theater works. He creates performance work for multidisciplinary ensembles, often devised and staged in non-theatrical venues. His most recent projects include “undine,” a New Music USA-supported work held in a converted flower shop downtown, and “katabasis,” a processional opera staged on the grounds of the Getty Villa, styled after ancient mystery rites.

In the coming year, Sweeney will continue his ongoing series of site-specific performances for the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, present his participatory installation song cycle “hymns” and premiere his new adaptation of Mary Shelley’s “Frankenstein” at The Wallis.

Since 1996, Center Theatre Group has recognized and celebrated local theater artists with the Richard E. Sherwood Award. Dorothy Sherwood, Richard’s wife and a fellow champion of innovative and adventurous theater artists, died in 2018. To honor the passion and dedication of both patrons of the arts, the award was renamed the Dorothy and Richard E. Sherwood Award.

For information, visit centertheatregroup.org.