The Gaudium Awards 2025
October 20, 2025 at 6:30 p.m.
Location: The Lotos Club, 5 East 66th Street, NY NY 10065
This year's honorees include:
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JEFF HARNAR / ALEX RYBECK
This is the first dual Gaudium Award to be given since its inception. Each of the two honorees, without a doubt, merits an individual award, but their joint work has filled cabaret venues with outstanding success. Simply put, their collaborations are exceptional and memorable. They are both considered the premier successors to the great cabaret stylists of previous generations.
Educated in New York while dreaming of a musical stage career, Jeff shifted into cabaret with bold success. That career has led him to perform in major cabaret rooms internationally. He has recorded numerous celebrated albums showcasing his interest in and mastery of the great songbook composers. Additionally, he has become a respected and sought-after director for other singers and their shows. He is the recipient of nearly every major award given to cabaret singer/directors.
Alex, Jeff’s frequent collaborator, is a pianist, arranger, and composer well known for his work in theater, cabaret, and the recording studio. Along with his Broadway credits, he is sought after and has coached a long list of well-known singers and actors—often in their cabaret debuts. A native of the D.C. area, his teachers have included Bernstein, Sondheim, Laurents, and Comden and Green. A recipient of the MAC Award for Best Musical Direction, Alex is a member of ASCAP and the Dramatists Guild.
BAAYORK LEE
If ever one could be called a Broadway Baby, it is Baayork Lee. This Chinatown native was a five-year-old in the original production of The King and I with Yul Brynner—an association and friendship that lasted throughout Brynner’s life. A student of ballet, modern, and Afro-Cuban dance, she also appeared in the original production of George Balanchine’s Nutcracker.
While at the High School of Performing Arts, she met fellow student and future wunderkind Michael Bennett—an association that would blossom later. Too short to be a legitimate ballet diva, she instead appeared on Broadway in the original Flower Drum Song, Mr. President, Golden Boy, and Here’s Love.
Re-enter Michael Bennett: Ms. Lee appeared in his next three Broadway shows. As Dance Captain in Promises, Promises, she began her own career as a choreographer with touring companies of that show, and in 1973 assisted with choreography on Bennett’s Seesaw.
In 1975, joining Michael and the original cast of A Chorus Line, she became part of that Broadway legend. She went on to collaborate with him on his subsequent shows. Since his death, she has taken up his mantle, recreating numerous productions of the original Chorus Line choreography all over the world. She has also directed numerous other productions in the United States and abroad.
In 2017, she received the Isabelle Stevenson Tony Award for her contributions to charitable causes. She is the Founder of the National Asian Artists Project, which seeks employment opportunities for Asian performers.
JANE PAULEY
Indiana native Jane Pauley has been a popular host and journalistic presence on America’s television screens since the early 1970s.
First best known as Barbara Walters’ successor on the Today show, Jane distinguished herself as a genial and engaging anchor on a series of important news programs.
Partnered with Bryant Gumbel and Stone Phillips for several years, she transitioned from Dateline NBC to her own brief Jane Pauley Show.
Her departure from the Today show caused that program to plummet in viewership and popularity. For a period, she was hailed as “America’s favorite newswoman.”
She continued on television in special reporting and correspondence, while also authoring a memoir and a frank guide to mid-life renewal.
In 2016, after a popular appearance on CBS Sunday Morning, Jane was named permanent host, succeeding Charles Osgood upon his retirement. She has remained a singularly popular host of that program since then.
Married to Gaudium recipient Garry Trudeau of Doonesbury fame since 1980, they have three children and two grandchildren. Jane has received numerous prestigious honors, including an Emmy Award for Lifetime Achievement and induction into the Broadcast and Cable Hall of Fame.
John Douglas Thompson
Now armed with a Tony nomination, two Drama Desk Awards, three Obie Awards, and Outer Critics and Lucille Lortel Awards, John Douglas Thompson seems far removed from his beginnings as a computer salesman.
Born in Bath, England, to Jamaican parents, he studied business at a small Jesuit college in upstate New York. On the brink of turning 30, he entered Brown University, earning an MFA.
He began an active stage career throughout New England with American Repertory Theater and Shakespeare & Company. His first of many performances as Othello in New York City received great reviews. He played opposite Denzel Washington as Flavius in Julius Caesar. His breakthrough came playing Othello and The Emperor Jones Off Broadway. The New York Times critic wrote: “There may be no better actor in the New York theatre right now.” Brooklyn’s BAM audiences saw him in the landmark production of The Iceman Cometh with Nathan Lane and Brian Dennehy.
His solo performance as Louis Armstrong in Satchmo at the Waldorf won awards on both coasts.
Audiences have also seen him on screen (Till, From Highest to Lowest) and on television, from Law & Order to his current role in The Gilded Age. Last year, he returned to London to play Othello with the Royal Shakespeare Company. Maintaining strong connections with Theatre for a New Audience, John resides in Brooklyn.
Benefitting
NAZARETH HOUSING / LOUISE’S PANTRY
OPPORTUNITY MUSIC PROJECT
THE NATIONAL ASIAN ARTISTS PROJECT