Lillian Fairchild Award

Headshot of Eric Fee.

Fairchild Award honors the founder of Rochester Fringe Festival

By Sheila Rayam

Award-winning producer Erica Fee is the recipient of the 2025 Lillian Fairchild Award, which recognizes artists for their contributions to the Rochester community.

Fee, a 1999 graduate of the University of Rochester, is the CEO and founding festival producer of the ESL Rochester Fringe Festival. More than one million people have attended the festival since its inception in 2012.

The Fairchild Award was established in 1924 in honor of artist and poet Lillian Fairchild (1878-1910). The annual award bestowed by URochester’s  Department of English celebrates a Rochester resident who has produced “the most meritorious and praiseworthy creation of art, poetry, or literature of the imagination” within the past 12 months.

In recent years, the scope of the prize has been expanded to recognize individuals who have worked collaboratively to increase public access to the arts or otherwise enrich the cultural life of our region.

“Although we could certainly call Erica Fee's achievement with the Rochester Fringe Festival a praiseworthy work of art in its own right, the festival also fully embodies our expanded sense of the Fairchild Prize as well, in its creation of an innovative series of events through which diverse residents of our region, regardless of background or income level, can come together to experience the joy, surprise, and profundity of the arts, and to build community at the same time,” says Katherine Mannheimer, professor and chair of the English department.

Mannheimer adds that “The Rochester Fringe is one of the largest of its kind in the US, drawing artists from across upstate New York as well as internationally, and bringing audiences to parts of the city they may never have seen before.”

The Fairchild Committee is honoring Fee ahead of the15th year of Fringe in 2026. Fee joins an illustrious list of Lillian Fairchild Award winners that includes modern dance choreographer Garth Fagan, acclaimed sculptor Albert Paley, and Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Anthony Hecht.

“As an alumna of the University of Rochester, I find that a lot of my current work and mindset is inextricably tied to my formative years at the University,” says Fee, who has worked professionally as an actor across stage, television, and film.  

“To be recognized by the institution that trained me is so very humbling and to join the list of creatives I have long admired is thrilling.”

Prior to creating the Rochester Fringe, Fee lived in the United Kingdom for 10 years. During that time, she ran her own London-based theatrical production and general management company. Her many producing, directing, and performance credits include U.K. premieres, and productions in London as well as at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe.

Fee was the first American to receive the prestigious New Producer’s Award from StageOne (Society of London Theatres/TMA), winning it twice, which is the maximum amount. She was men­tored by acclaimed Broadway and West End producer Paul Elliott.

In addition to leading the Rochester Fringe, Fee founded production company Your Attention Please, which focuses on theatre, TV and film. The company is currently touring The Enigmatist, starring New York Times crossword puzzle constructor and magician David Kwong.

In June, Fee was named to the New York State Council on the Arts. She’ll help decide which cultural organizations will receive state grants, along with the 20 other members appointed by the governor.

At the University of Rochester, Fee was a Xerox Scholar and member of Phi Beta Kappa. She gradu­ated magna cum laude with a BA in Political Science and History, and with a minor in Theater. She was a Take Five Scholar, and the 2016 Commencement Speaker.

Past Recipients

2024: Herb Smith, Missy Pfohl Smith, Quajay Donnell, and Stephen Schottenfeld
A sculptor. A dancer. A musician. A photographer. A writer.

Five artists are the latest recipients of the distinguished Lillian Fairchild Award, a longstanding recognition of the Department of English bestowed to residents of the Rochester area for meaningful contributions to art and literature.

Even though this award is typically only granted to a single artist, this year, five artists are being honored due to the award being placed on hiatus during the pandemic.

A ceremony celebrating the newest five artists to join the list of luminaries was held on April 4 in the Hawkins-Carlson Room of the Rush Rhees Library.

2023: Stephen Schottenfeld
Author and Associate Professor of English at the University of Rochester

Schottenfeld is the author of two novels, Bluff City Pawn and This Room Is Made of Noise, whose work has been published in numerous literary magazines and received special mentions by the Pushcart Prize and in the Best American Short Stories anthologies.

His narratives often trace the work lives of his characters — pawnbrokers, postal carriers, telephone repairmen, home inspectors, police detectives, to name a few — and explore how their professions carry a unique set of experiences and conflicts.

At the University, Schottenfeld teaches courses in fiction writing and contemporary literature, playwriting, and screenwriting.

2022: Quajay Donnell
Photographer and Writer

Donnell’s photographs and writings have been published in local and national publications and have contributed immensely to the public discourse on public art.

He is perhaps best known in Rochester for his stunning images of murals and street graffiti that elevate the artforms. He is the lead photographer for the ongoing mural project WALL\THERAPY and a staff photographer for Roc Paint Division, which offers employment and training to young developing artists.

2021: Herb Smith
Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra Trumpet Player and Founder of Herb’s City Trumpets

Smith, a native of Cincinnati, came to Rochester in 1987 to attend the Eastman School of Music, where he established himself as an accomplished classical musician and soloist and a jazz performer. Upon earning his bachelor’s degree, he landed a trumpet position with the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra, and planted roots here.

Through his Herb’s City Trumpets, Smith mentors young people on playing music as a means of self-expression, developing social skills, and learning responsibility, and discipline.

2020: Missy Pfohl Smith
Founder and Artistic Director of the Contemporary Repertory Company BIODANCE

Smith, a dancer, choreographer, and performer who directs the Program of Dance and Movement and the Institute for the Performing Arts at the University of Rochester, has established herself globally as an enthusiastic artistic collaborator.

Her site-specific and multi-disciplinary work, imbued with socially-conscious choreography, has been performed around the world, most recently in Finland, Germany, Greece, and Scotland. Smith serves on the board of the Rochester Fringe Festival, a festival for which she has also created critically-acclaimed shows.

2019: Olivia Kim
Sculptor of the Frederick Douglass Bicentennial Commemoration

Kim was the sculptor behind 13 statues of Frederick Douglass that were placed around Rochester in 2018 to celebrate the bicentennial of the firth of the famed abolitionist and orator who made the city his home.

Her creations were near replicas of a statue of Douglass by Stanley Edwards erected in 1899 that stands in Highland Park and contributed to the subsequent national conversation about the subjects of historical monuments.