Text of the citation read by actress Vera Visconti Lockwood,

(who played the leading role in the PSA/Classic Theater production of La Vita Che Ti Diedi), in presenting the Special (PSA) Award to Natalia Danesi Murray, who was among the very first to promote Pirandello in this country.

       "Ms. Murray knew Pirandello personally -- something worth all the books in the world written by him -- and, soon after returning to the United States in 1951 to head the newly-opened New York office of Arnoldo Mondadori, the Italian publisher who was also Pirandello's publisher, Ms. Murray took on the handling of the literary and dramatic rightsof the Pirandello Estate.  In her capacity as literary agent for the Pirandello properties, Ms. Murray was instrumental in getting Six Characters produced at Circle in the Square here in New York and at the Arena Theater in Washington, D.C., in a new translation that ran for over a year. 

         Ms. Murray has moved in artistic circles both here and abroad all her life.  She was for a time a singer and  actress herself.  She worked for USIS until 1946 when she became a free-lance correspondent in Italy, contributing pieces to Harper's Bazaar, UN World, Look and Mademoiselle.  IN 1966 she became Vice-President of the Rizzoli corporation, which that year opened its headquarters and bookstore in New York City.  Ms. Murray is still active as a constultant to publishing firms and has helped to launch in Italy the works of Edward Albee, Robert Anderson, William Inge, Arthur Miler, Tennessee Williams, John Hershey, Edmund Wilson, John O'Hara, John Updike, Norman Mailer, Anne Morrow Lindberg, Shirley Hazzard, and many others.  She too has translated and written plays and books and articles, including a children's book, Milu. "