Actors Brian Dennehy and Gabriel Byrne will make an unprecedented appearance together to honor the memory of the only American playwright to ever win the Nobel Prize. The occasion is the presenting of the Eugene O’Neill Lifetime Achievement Award to Dennehy by the non-profit group Irish American Writers & Artists, Inc. (IAW&A).

Among his many accomplishments, Dennehy won a Tony Award for his performance in O’Neill’s Long Days Journey into Night.

Byrne, who has starred on Broadway in the O’Neill plays A Moon for the Misbegotten and A Touch of the Poet, will be a featured speaker at the event in honor of Dennehy. He will also pay tribute to the enduring legacy of O’Neill, whose plays are still staged in theaters around the globe and in many languages fifty-seven years after his death.

The Eugene O’Neill Lifetime Achievement Award is presented annually by IAW&A to a writer, actor, musician or other artist whose body of work best exemplifies the standard of accomplishment and integrity set forth by O’Neill. Last year, the honoree was William Kennedy, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Ironweed and other novels set mostly in Albany, New York. Kennedy will be on hand this year to present the award to Dennehy.

The event will be held Monday, October 18, 2010 at the Manhattan Club, above Rosie O’Grady’s Times Square, (800 7th Avenue, corner of 52nd), just two blocks from where O’Neill was born.

For information on tickets for the event visit www.oneillaward.org, the IAW&A website at www.i-am-wa.org or call 646-320-5595.