Stage Directors and Choreographers Foundation (SDCF) has announced that Los Angeles-based director, writer, and cultural organizer Mark Valdez is this year’s recipient of its annual Zelda Fichandler Award. The award recognizes directors and choreographers who have demonstrated great accomplishment with singular creativity and deep investment in a particular community or region, with this year’s nominees coming from the Western United States. Valdez will receive an unrestricted award of $5,000, and the award will be presented at a virtual ceremony on Jan. 24, 2022.

“Mark Valdez has spent the entirety of his phenomenal career making work by, for, and with disparate and marginalized communities in the Los Angeles area and beyond,” said selection committee chair Tony Taccone. “He has used the theatre to invite audiences and performers to engage with ideas they didn’t think they could understand or embrace. All the while bringing his singular talent and imagination to create art that has the capacity to change lives. With the granting of this award, Zelda Fichandler is undoubtedly smiling down from her place in the firmament.”

Jennifer Chang, Leslie Ishii, and Erika Chong Shuch also were named as finalists for this year’s award.

Mark Valdez also was the recipient of the 2019 Johnson Fellowship for Artists Transforming Communities from Americans for the Arts.