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Ali Tallman, resident dramaturg at GableStage, has been named the first recipient of the Carbonell Awards’ Christine Dolen Award honoring the outstanding debut of a Carbonell-eligible performer, playwright, producer, director or designer.
Tallman has been an assistant director, choreographer and member of New City Players in Broward County as well as working at GableStage since 2004.
The recognition is named after the award-winning theater critic for the Miami Herald for more than 35 years and dean of the Carbonell judges who died in 2025.
After producing her own play in New Mexico and at Miami-Dade’s LakeHouseRanchDotPNG, Tallman directed her first major, fully professional production this season, The 39 Steps at New City Players.
Zoetic Stage’s Stuart Meltzer hailed her “creative, bold story-telling and full realization of artistic concepts (that) demanded attention,” calling Tallman “a director to watch and a future leader in American Theatre.” Tim Davis, Producing Artistic Director at New City Players, praised her “inventive, exhilarating, and hilarious production… No doubt Ali is only at the beginning of a long and profound directing career in our community.”
Following The 39 Steps, Tallman directed this season with Orchestra Miami, the Coconut Grove Theatre Festival, and City Theatre’s City Reads series. In addition to the GableStage season, Ali also provided dramaturgy for The South Florida Theatre League and Miami-Dade County’s Playwrights Development Program and FIU’s Greenhouse Program. This summer, she will be attending the La MaMa Umbria International Symposium for Directors/Theatre-Makers and will later direct Amy Herzog’s adaptation of Henrik Ibsen’s An Enemy of the People for New City Players. Tallman is also a founding member of the review board of the Florida Intimacy Professionals Collective, a Carbonell judge, and a board member/dance instructor for Swing Out, South Florida.
The award is one of nine special awards to be presented at the 49th annual ceremony Nov. 16 at FAU’s University Theatre in Boca Raton.
The program has already announced that it will present The George Abbott Award for Outstanding Achievement in the Arts to
Stuart Meltzer, Founding Artistic Director of Zoetic Stage.
The others will be announced here one a week.
All the 2026 Special Award recipients were nominated by members of South Florida’s theater community with the Carbonell Board of Directors making the final selection.
