David Neumann and Marcella Murray receive a 2020 Obie Award for the Creation and Performance of Distances Smaller Than This Are Not Confirmed (Advanced Beginner Group, Abrons Arts Center, Chocolate Factory Theater, Mabou Mines)

This year, a white man and a Black woman had a theatrical conversation around two topics: the fundamental properties of our universe—mass, particles, space, and time—and the prickly, painful subject of race. Eschewing rage and undaunted by the scope of their subjects, they crafted a dialogue about presumptions and judgments that was neither presumptuous nor judgmental, directly addressing their subjects’ enormity by indirectly talking about them. The result of their collaboration is a bold, delicate, unconventional, and wonderfully optimistic piece of Dance Theater. For their work on Distances Smaller Than This Are Not Confirmed, the Obie Committee have awarded a Special Obie Citation for Creation and Performance to David Neumann and Marcella Murray.