Gunderson and THE BOOK OF WILL Win Top Steinberg/ATCA New Play Award

Over the weekend, the American Theatre Critics Association announced the 2018 winners of the Steinberg/ATCA New Play Awards, which shine a spotlight (and reward) playwrights for professionally produced work premiering outside New York City. With the top award and two citations, the Steinberg/ATCA Awards give out a total of $40,00 each year, making the awards the largest national new play program of its kind. Every year, they are announced on the Saturday of the last weekend of Actors Theatre of Louisville's Humana Festival of New American Plays.

Playwright Lauren Gunderson continued what has been a banner year, as she was the recipient of the the top award of $25,000 and a commemorative plaque for her play The Book of Will, which premiered at the Denver Center for the Performing Arts last year. Gunderson's scenario takes place after the death of Shakespeare, when two of his friends--Henry Condell and John Heminges--attempt to preserve his plays for posterity. As the Denver Center frames it, "the two actors are determined to compile the first Folio and preserve the words that shaped their lives. They’ll just have to borrow, beg and band together to get it done. Lauren Gunderson weaves a hilarious and heartfelt story inspired by the true story of Shakespeare’s First Folio."

In a world with so many Shakespeare festivals eager to produce work that involves him* and a playwright with a good deal of buzz right now, it seems likely you will see The Book of Will somewhere near you very soon. The Book of Will has been published by Dramatists Play Service.

Molly Smith Metzler's Cry It Out, an insightful look at how new motherhood affects three very different women (and one man), took a $7500 cash prize, along with Ike Holter's The Wolf at the end of the Block, a searing drama about a crime outside a boarded-up Chicago bar that underlines the jagged gulf between people of color and the police. Cry It Out premiered at last year's Humana Festival, while The Wolf at the End of the Block was presented by Teatro Vista at Victory Gardens Theater. You can find Cry It Out at Dramatic Publishing, while The Wolf at the End of the Block is scheduled to be published by Northwestern University Press along with Holter's entire seven-play Chicago cycle.

The other finalists were Linda Vista and The Minutes, both by Tracy Letts, and Objects in the Mirror by Charles Smith.

At the same event at the Humana Festival, Chelsea Marcantel's Airness, a breezy and energetic look at an air guitar competition, was named this year's winner of the M. Elizabeth Osborn New Play Award recognizing an emerging playwright.

*For recent work involving Shakespeare as a person, see: Lee Hall's Shakespeare in Love, coming to the Illinois Shakespeare Festival this year, after productions in London, the Stratford Festival in Canada, Chicago, etc.; Timothy Findley's Elizabeth Rex, a smash at Illinois Shakes in 2014 after it, too, played at the Stratford Festival and Chicago Shakes; and Bill Cain's Equivocation, a previous Steinberg/ATCA winner from the Oregon Shakespeare Festival.

American Theatre Critics Announce Steinberg/ATCA New Play Finalists

The American Theatre Critics Association has released the names of the six finalists for the 2018 Harold and Mimi Steinberg/ATCA New Play Award, which spotlights playwrights for professionally produced work premiering outside New York City. The Steinberg/ATCA Awards hand out $40,00 each year, making these awards the largest national new play program of its kind.

This year's finalists are The Book of Will by Lauren Gunderson, Cry It Out by Molly Smith Metzler, Linda Vista by Tracy Letts, The Minutes by Tracy Letts, Objects in the Mirror by Charles Smith, and The Wolf at the End of the Block by Ike Holter. Chicago is strongly represented in this group, with two plays from Letts that premiered at Steppenwolf, Smith's play from the Goodman Theatre, and Holter's play, which was presented by Teatro Vista at Victory Gardens.

Here's how the ATCA committee describes the plays chosen:

The Book of Will by Lauren Gunderson, about the efforts of Shakespeare's contemporaries to preserve his words after his death, "fires on all cylinders" according to one panelist. Said another, it "wrestles with big questions: Why we create and how we deal with death? What constitutes a legacy? And how a surpassing love for something bigger can make every sacrifice worth it." It's "all the more impressive given that we know how the story will end." "And it's funny — genuinely funny — in a way that feels contemporary and yet not cynical." The Book of Will had its world premiere at the Denver Center for the Performing Arts.

Cry It Out by Molly Smith Metzler focuses on the bonds and barriers between two new mothers across a backyard and across class differences. According to panel members, it is "heartbreakingly original in wrestling with issues of female friendship and class and privilege while still being a story about two people one quickly feels strongly about." "Their challenges come across as very real and accessible without being trivialized." Cry It Out premiered at the Humana Festival.

Linda Vista by Tracy Letts focuses on "a man-child who is lonely and wants to be loved — while remaining too immature to do the work involved in making that happen." With, according to a panelist, some of the "smartest, funniest dialogue of any play this year, it also features female roles exceptionally fresh and well crafted." "Letts runs it out of control and then brings it back," said another. It features, "smart observations on marriage, fatherhood, and aging" and, noted yet another, "It's like getting smacked with a metal ruler while someone's telling jokes." Linda Vista premiered at Steppenwolf Theatre Company in Chicago.

The Minutes, also by Tracy Letts, reads like "this is Grover's Corners and Winesburg, Ohio through the eyes of Shirley Jackson." It's "a very weird roller coaster ride" through an absurd town council meeting that leads to "a magnificent tribal reveal soaked in the saddest truth about humanity." "I could see where this would be an actor's and director's dream with a WOW finish." The Minutes also premiered at Steppenwolf Theatre Company.

Objects in the Mirror by Charles Smith "compellingly takes us into the mindset of the masses of refugees fleeing wars and other violence and their struggle against great odds to survive and escape." It's about both "the price of immigration, and the importance of identity, with a second act that feeds on the first act in clever ways but takes us in a new direction." "I was also moved," said one panelist, "by the identity crisis at the heart of the play—the hunger to reclaim a self and name that no longer belong to you." It conveys "a great deal about how worlds apart people can be, how different their ideas of how to help." Objects in the Mirror premiered at Chicago's Goodman Theatre.

The Wolf at the End of the Block by Ike Holter is, according to one panelist, "a play I can't get out of my head, from one of the most exciting emerging voices in American theater." It "melds gorgeous, often comedic dialogue into a very dark reality" in "a play that matters." Centered on a beating outside of a Chicago bar, it's "honest about how flawed the would-be heroes of the piece are — refreshing, given the amount of paint-by-numbers agitprop out there right now." Presented by Teatro Vista, The Wolf at the End of the Block premiered at Chicago's Victory Gardens Theater.

These six finalists were selected from eligible scripts recommended by ATCA members from across the country.  To read about the history of the Steinberg/ATCA awards and see past winners, click here.

The top award of $25,000 and two citations of $7,500 each, plus commemorative plaques, will be presented April 7 at the 2018 Humana Festival of American Play at Actors Theatre of Louisville.

American Theatre Critics Announce 2017 Steinberg New Play Award Finalists

The American Theatre Critics Association has announced the six finalists for this year's Harold and Mimi Steinberg/American Theatre Critics Association New Play Award, which recognizes the best scripts that premiered professionally outside New York City during 2016. With $40,000 total presented during the Humana Festival of New American Plays at Actors Theatre of Louisville, the Steinberg/ATCA Awards represent the "largest national new play award program of its kind." Three playwrights will receive recognition, with a top award of $25,000 and two citations of $7,500 each.

The six finalists for 2017 include two plays first produced by Chicago's Steppenwolf Theatre and four productions total from Chicago theaters, which says a lot about the city's commitment to new work and theatrical excellence. Playwright Tracy Letts has been nominated before for his work with Steppenwolf, with a citation for Superior Donuts in 2009. Among the other playwrights in the group, Michael Cristofer took top honors way back in 1996 for his play Amazing Grace. For the complete list of previous honorees, click here.

This year's finalists are:

The Ice Treatment by Nate Eppler. Premiered at Actors Bridge Ensemble, Nashville. "'Compelling, with fast moving story and well-constructed dialogue...plus a cosmonaut,' opined one panelist of Eppler’s darkly funny take on celebrity, concerning a 'modern day, working-class monster—or is she?' 'Always on the verge of careening out of control, the tonal shifts are wild,' chimed in others of this 'interrogation of the American Dream' as an ice skater 'writes her own story, regardless of the truth.'"

in a word by Lauren Yee. Produced via the National New Play Network with a rolling world premiere at the San Francisco Playhouse, Cleveland Public Theatre and Straw Dog Theatrein Chicago. "'Important and honest questions are being asked, here,' commented one panelist. 'Yee’s masterful drama about a mother's living nightmare after a child's disappearance is a mystery of word puzzles' that are 'lyrical and haunting and very well-constructed.' 'To have an ending that is satisfying dramatically but still appropriately unresolved is a tough nut to crack and this one does it.'"

Man in the Ring by Michael Cristofer. Premiered at the Court Theatre, Chicago. With “the inexorable feel of a classic tragedy,” this drama “with its Caribbean songs and its rhythm and thrust, seems at first to be a play of beautiful and utter simplicity. But au contraire.” Based on the true story of a boxer who killed a man in the ring, “the playwright threads through guilt and tragedy, weaving past and present together seamlessly.” This rich play stays “within the playwright’s total control while allowing for the frayed edges that make it feel alive and not premeditated.”

Mary Page Marlowe by Tracy Letts. Premiered at Steppenwolf Theatre, Chicago. "'Generous and incredibly specific,' Letts’ play drew panelists in 'by both the flawed, multifaceted woman at the play’s center and how the non-linear storytelling painted this vivid picture of her.' Added others: 'The beauty of this play, the originality, the well-crafted scenes – with a scope so much larger than so many "issue" plays' brought to life 'an imperfect, fascinating, stalwart character…who doesn’t yield her story to any of the people around her.'"

Time Is On Our Side by R. Eric Thomas. Premiered at Sympatico Theatre, Philadelphia. "Who gets to tell our stories? And why do they tell them? Those are some of the questions asked in Thomas' tale of podcasters who discover a hidden diary. The play features 'fantastic language,' and 'sharp wit' that 'could have become a sentimental mess at any moment but somehow always saved itself.'"

Visiting Edna by David Rabe. Premiered at Steppenwolf Theatre, Chicago. "With 'extraordinarily constructed dialogues and monologues that are simultaneously wide-ranging and super specific,' Rabe’s play is primarily focused on a dying mother and her son but with characters including her TV…and Cancer itself. 'While aging and dying may be all around us in the theater, right now,' commented one panelist, 'I found this play particularly brave and honest and deep, without getting sentimental or trying to be existentially profound, about what it means to face death (both for mother and son). I can’t shake this play. And I don’t want to.'"

The finalists were selected from eligible scripts recommended by ATCA members and evaluated by a committee of 17 ATCA members led by Lou Harry of the Indianapolis Business Journal/IBJ.com.

Awards will be presented on April 8, 2017, during the last weekend of Actors Theatre of Louisville's Humana Festival of New American Plays.

Qui Nguyen Wins Steinberg/ATCA New Play Award for VIETGONE

Image for The Oregon Shakespeare Festival production of Qui Nguyen's Vietgone

This year's top Harold and Mimi Steinberg/American Theatre Critics Association New Play Award has been awarded to Qui Nguyen's Vietgone, called "an all-American love story about two very new Americans" in South Coast Rep's description of the play's premiere production last year. The quote continues: "It’s 1975, and Saigon has fallen. He lost his wife. She lost her fiancé. But now in a new land, they just might find each other. Using his uniquely infectious style The New York Times calls 'culturally savvy comedy'—and skipping back and forth from the dramatic evacuation of Saigon to the here and now—playwright Qui Nguyen gets up close and personal to tell the story that led to the creation of…Qui Nguyen."

Qui Nguyen

Vietgone is currently playing at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival; it will play Off-Broadway this fall, with previews beginning October 4 at New York City Center's Stage I, presented by Manhattan Theatre Club.

The Steinberg/ATCA New Play Awards recognize playwrights for outstanding work that premiered professionally outside New York City during the previous year. The prize comes with a $25,000 top award, this year given to Nguyen, along with two $7500 citations, which were awarded to Steven Dietz, for his play Bloomsday, and Jen Silverman, for her play The Dangerous House of Pretty Mbane. With a combined cash prize of $40,000, the Steinberg/ATCA Award is the largest national new play award program of its kind. 

Dietz's Bloomsday received its world premiere at ACT Theatre in Seattle. ATCA panelists who read the play during judging described it as "Tender, beautiful, and heartbreaking." The play involves two characters, one a Dublin guide who takes people to see locations from James Joyce's Ulysses and the other an American who isn't at all familiar with the book. Their brief meeting is "complicated and enhanced by visits from their 35-years-later selves.

The Dangerous House of Pretty Mbane is set in a safe house for women in South Africa, with Silverman using the story of a soccer star who returns to her native land in search of a missing lover who also happens to be a political activist to explore issues of violence toward women, media and politics, and what it means to go home again. Silverman's play was first produced at Philadelphia's Interact Theatre Company.

The other three finalists for the award were Samuel D. Hunter for Clarkston, Lynn Nottage for Sweat, and Jonathan Norton for Mississippi Goddamn. Norton took home the 2016 ATCA M. Elizabeth Osborn New Play Award, which was also awarded April 9, during the final weekend of the Humana Festival of New American Plays at Actors Theatre of Louisville. The American Theatre Critics Association gives the Osborn New Play Award to an emerging playwright who has not yet received national attention.

Lou Harry, arts and entertainment editor for the Indianapolis Business Journal and IBJ.com/arts chairs ATCA's New Plays Committee, which selects honorees for both the Steinberg/ATCA Awards and the Osborn Award.

Finalists Announced for Steinberg/ATCA New Play Award

The American Theatre Critics Association has announced the six finalist plays for this year's Harold and Mimi Steinberg/ATCA New Play Award. This award recognizes the playwrights whose scripts were deemed the best among plays that premiered professionally outside New York City during the previous year.

This 2016 finalists are Steven Dietz for Bloomsday, Samuel D. Hunter for Clarkston, Jen Silverman for The Dangerous House of Pretty Mbane, Jonathan Norton for Mississippi Goddamn, Lynn Nottage for Sweat, and Qui Nguyen for Vietgone. ATCA offers more detail on the plays:

BLOOMSDAY by Steven Dietz

"Tender, beautiful, and heartbreaking," said one panelist about Dietz's tale of four – well, actually two – characters meeting on the streets of Dublin. A brief encounter between Cathleen, a guide on a tour of locations from James Joyce's Ulysses, and Robbie, an American who never read the book, is complicated and enhanced by visits from their 35-years-later selves. Yes, we've all seen what-might-have-been stories on stage, but in the words of other panelists, this "artful and elegant," "lovely and thoughtful" play with its "slightly supernatural sparkle" had an ending that's "a genuine epiphany."

Bloomsday premiered at ACT Theatre in Seattle.

CLARKSTON by Samuel D. Hunter

"Deftly entwining a love story with a classic tale," according to one panelist, Clarkston, set in a nondescript town in eastern Washington, "expresses the sorrows and yearnings of working class people who have heavy burdens and few options." It's about the bridging of a divide between a pair of Costco employees, one seriously ill. Although one is a distant relationship of Meriwether Lewis, these two are on very different journeys of discovery in this story that is "told simply with no razzmatazz, just quiet power and characters you care about," a panelist commented.

Clarkston premiered at Dallas Theater Center.

THE DANGEROUS HOUSE OF PRETTY MBANE by Jen Silverman

A soccer star is drawn back home in search of her lover, who runs a safe house for women, in this "smart, stunning, excellent" play. It is, according to one panelist, "an illuminating political play that uses memorable, flawed characters to tell a powerful and personal story." Another added that the play is "an assured, fascinating window into the abuse of women in South Africa, but also much more – a lyrical love story, a probe of how media can help and hurt when drawing attention to violence, the conundrum of deciding whether to live in a foreign country where you can be safe and prosper or remain at your own peril in your tumultuous native land."

The Dangerous House of Pretty Mbane premiered at Philadelphia's InterAct Theatre.

MISSISSIPPI GODDAMN by Jonathan Norton

Norton takes us to the house next door to Civil Rights leader Medgar Evers in this drama about a family making tough decisions in a tumultuous time. "He may have used Nina Simone's song as his title, but the play's content isn't borrowed at all," one panelist commented. Others added that the "fast-moving, dramatic, and revelatory" play with a "truly explosive, molten core" includes "nothing PC or sentimental." The play has, according to another, "a raw quality that actually benefits the tense 'desperate hours' scenario of neighbors and families divided by the insidious pressures of racism."

Mississippi Goddamn premiered at the South Dallas Cultural Center.

SWEAT by Lynn Nottage

Disappearing jobs impact a group of friends in a play that features "great storytelling" with "a rich gallery of characters" and "a compelling story arc," according to panelists. In the great tradition of bar-set plays, “One could say Sweat is about the ways the national economy is shifting away from manufacturing jobs. One could also say it's about parents and children, about how skin color separates in ways we can't/don't often articulate, and about how business decisions made by unseen people in power can destroy lives." It's "an extraordinary play" that "grabs at the beginning and packs a wallop in the end."

Sweat premiered at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival.

VIETGONE by Qui Nguyen

"A sexy comedy about culture-shocked, grieving Vietnamese refugees who fled to the U.S. after the fall of Saigon? Where everyone is really speaking Vietnamese, but we're hearing it as slangy, cheeky English? I marveled at what this playwright was bringing off," commented one panelist about Vietgone, a very entertaining, fresh tale that slyly reveals its darker contours." Others noted that the play offers "a vivid, specific voice, a wonderful sense of humor and compelling stakes" and that Nguyen "does great things with fine sensibility, language and structure, along with the right mix of lunacy" in style that "is as fresh as the content."

Vietgone premiered at South Coast Repertory.

The top award of $25,000 and two citations of $7,500 each will be presented April 9th at Actors Theatre of Louisville during the Humana Festival of New American Plays. With that $40,000 pool of prizes, the Steinberg/ATCA New Play Award is the largest national new play award program.

ATCA has honored new plays produced at regional theaters outside New York City since 1977, with the idea that plays performed in New York are eligible for many more awards than those produced regionally, and a spotlight should be given to those plays in the latter group. No play is eligible for the Steinberg/ATCA New Play Award if it has gone on to a New York production within the award year. Since 2000, the award has been generously funded by the Harold and Mimi Steinberg Charitable Trust.

Last year the top prize went to Rebecca Gilman for her play Luna Gale. with citations to Lucas Hnath for The Christians and Nathan Alan Davis for Dontrell, Who Kissed the Sea. Previous recipients include Adrienne Kennedy, Craig Lucas, Arthur Miller, Marsha Norman, Robert Schenkkan, August Wilson and Lanford Wilson. For a list of all the winners and citation recipients from 1997 to 2014, click here.

Rebecca Gilman's LUNA GALE Wins Steinberg/ATCA New Play Prize

Every year, the American Theatre Critics Association pairs with the Harold and Mimi Steinberg Charitable Trust to hand out awards to playwrights with new work that premiered professionally outside New York City during the previous year. The Harold and Mimi Steinberg/ATCA New Play Awards give the winning playwrigths a total of $40,000, making this "the largest national new play award recognizing regional theaters."

Rebecca Gilman

This year, Rebecca Gilman was the big winner, with a $25,000 check presented along with a commemorative plaque for Luna Gale, which premiered in early 2014 at Chicago's Goodman Theatre under the direction of Robert Falls. The Goodman called this "powerful and arresting" story about an overworked social worker faced with a custody choice between teenage drug addict parents and a religious zealot grandparent "an unforgettable tale of faith and forgiveness"in their promotional materials, while The Chicago Tribune's Chris Jones named it to his Best of 2014 List and Time Out Chicago's Kris Vires lauded it as Pulitzer Prize worthy material.

When she accepted the award, Gilman noted that the Goodman is her theatrical home. She is the author of Spinning into Butter and Boy Gets Girl, both commissioned and originally produced at the Goodman. Gilman has received a Guggenheim Fellowship, The Harper Lee Award, The Scott McPherson Award, The Prince Prize for Commissioning New Work, The Roger L. Stevens Award from the Kennedy Center Fund for New American Plays, The Evening Standard Award for Most Promising Playwright, The George Devine Award, The Theatre Masters Visionary Award, The Great Plains Playwright Award and an Illinois Arts Council playwriting fellowship. Boy Gets Girl was nominated for an Olivier Award for Best New Play, while The Glory of Living was a finalist for the 2001 Pulitzer Prize for Drama. Gilman is currently an artistic associate at the Goodman Theatre as well as associate professor of playwriting and screenwriting at Northwestern University.

Additional $7500 citations went to Lucas Hnath's The Chistians, which premiered at last year's Humana Festival, and Nathan Alan Davis's Dontrell, Who Kissed the Sea, part of the New Play Network' Rolling World Premiere Program with productions at the Skylight Theatre Company and Lower Depth Theatre Ensemble in Los Angeles and the Washington DC Source Theater Festival.

The Christians took a theatrical look at issues of faith in contemporary mega-churches, posing hard questions with no easy answers, while Dontrell examined a young man's attempt to connect with his roots by researching an ancestor who chose to die drowning in the ocean rather than arrive on American shores as a slave.

Since its inception, the Steinberg New Play Award has singled out and honored playwrights like Arthur Miller, Marsha Norman, Lynn Nottage, August Wilson and Lanford Wilson. Lauren Gunderson took the top prize last year for her play I and You. For the complete list of winners and runners-up, click here.

For more information on the Steinberg/ATCA Award, contact William F. Hirschman, outgoing chair of the ATCA New Play Committee, at muckrayk@aol.com

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Lauren Gunderson's I AND YOU Wins 2014 Steinberg/ATCA Award

I have been remiss in catching up with news from last month's Humana Festival, including the awarding of the prestigious Harold and Mimi Steinberg/American Theatre Critics New Play Awards, which annually recognize playwrights for notable scripts that premiered professionally outside New York City. The Steinberg/ATCA awards bestow $25,000 and a commemorative plaque to the overall winner, with two additional citations for $7500 each.

Lauren Gunderson

This year, Lauren Gunderson’s I and You, described as a "delicate but droll play about teenagers exploring life and death" received the $25,000 prize, while Christopher Demos-Brown's Fear Up Harsh and Martin Zimmerman's Seven Spots on the Sun took the $7500 citations.

With total awards of $40,000, the Steinberg/ATCA Awards are the largest national new play awards in the United States which recognize regional theaters as an important growing ground for new plays.

Gunderson's I and You was first produced at the Marin Theatre Company in the San Francisco Bay area in October 2013. That production was part of a "rolling world premiere" program supported by the National New Play Network, an initiative that gives plays a chance to be presented at three theaters in quick succession, with different creative teams and different kinds of theater. Playwrights like Steven Dietz, Quiara Alegria Hudes and Theresa Rebeck have participated in this rolling world premiere program, which is intended to help plays and playwrights "attain the momentum needed to join the repertoire of frequently-produced new American works."

I and You features two characters -- Caroline, a high school student who needs a liver transplant, and a fellow student named Anthony, a basketball player who loves poetry and playing the saxophone. Because of her health issues, Caroline hasn't been at school in some time, and the play begins when Anthony arrives at Caroline's house intent on completing a school project on Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass. She's prickly and even obnoxious; he's affable and outgoing. She may be dying; he is brimming with life. As they continue their discussion of poetry "with verve," the two teenagers venture into issues of mortality, humanity and connection shaped by Whitman's words. And by the end... As ATCA materials tell us, "With in humor and sharp insights, the play grows quietly toward a surprising, overwhelmingly moving conclusion."

Originally from Atlanta, Georgia, Gunderson is a playwright in residence at the Playwrights Foundation, and a member of Just Theatre’s New Play Lab. She was profiled last year in American Theatre magazine at just about the time I and You began.

Check these links to see more information on the Steinberg/ATCA Awards and the other new plays nominated and cited this year.

Top Steinberg/ATCA Prize Goes to Robert Schenkkan for LBJ Drama

The Harold and Mimi Steinberg/ATCA New Play Awards are handed out every year during the Humana Festival at Actors Theatre of Louisville. This year, the finalists were Johnna Adams for her script Gidion's Knot, a teacher/parent drama about suicide and grief; Ayad Akhtar for his political thriller The Invisible Hand; Luca Hnath for Death Tax, a life, death and taxes struggle that premiered at last year's Humana Festival; Mia McCullough for Impenetrable, about beauty and its impossible standards; Dan O'Neal for The Wind Farmer, a mythic piece about hanging on to old traditions in a changing world; and Robert Schenkkan for All the Way, a new play about President Lyndon Johnson.

A committee within the American Theatre Critics Association reads scripts suggested by its membership, choosing six finalists -- new plays first produced outside New York City -- from among the field submitted. The ATCA reports that this year, they evaluated a record 42 plays for consideration for the Steinberg/ATCA New Play citations, which awards a total of $40,000 to the winning playwrights. That sum represents "the largest national new play award focusing on regional theaters as the crucible for new plays in the United States."

Robert Schenkkan

Pulitzer Prize winner Robert Schenkkan was the big winner, with a $25,000 check presented along with a plaque, for his LBJ play, All the Way, which was commissioned to be performed last summer as part of the "American Revolutions: The United States History Cycle" project at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. Schenkkan is no stranger to American history; his Kentucky Cycle won the Pulitzer Prize back in 1991. Characters like Hubert Humphrey, J. Edgar Hoover and Martin Luther King, Jr. populated the landscape of Schenkkan's play, an exploration of how Lyndon Johnson came to power and how this "charismatic, conflicted Texan hurl[ed] himself into Civil Rights legislation, throwing the country into turmoil." The ATCA judges called the play "an engrossing, epic" play and described Schenkkan's version of LBJ as "complex, obscene, brilliant and ruthless." 

Actor Jack Willis as Lyndon Johnson in the OSF production of All the Way

The two $7500 citations went to Adams' Gideon's Knot and Hnath's Death Tax, both gripping dramas about the American way of life and death.

Adams' play premiered at the Contemporary American Theater Festival in Shepherdstown, West Virginia. Gidion's Knot involves a grieving mother who clashes with her dead son's teacher to try to find some explanation for his suicide. Fifth-grader Gidion wrote a horrifying story for school, something powerful and violent and strange, but no more violent, no more strange than the medieval literature his mother studies. Was Gidion too aggressive to stay in school? Or pushed around by other aggressors? Either way, who's to blame?

The issues in Hnath's Death Tax are equally compelling, as we see a withered old woman, a dragon sitting on a pile of money, who tries to bargain with her nurse in an assisted care facility to keep herself alive. Nurse Tina is not on the take to murder her patient, even if she can't convince the old dragon of that. "Without positing easy answers, the play dissects greed, dysfunctional human relationships and the potential implications of a medical paradigm that can keep people alive indefinitely," noted the ATCA. 

Since its inception, the Steinberg New Play Award has singled out and honored playwrights like
Arthur Miller, Marsha Norman, Lynn Nottage, August Wilson and Lanford Wilson. Yussef  El Guindi took the prize last year for his play Pilgrims Musa and Sheri in the New World. For the complete list of winners and runners-up, click here.

For more information on the Steinberg/ATCA Award, contact William F. Hirschman, chair of the ATCA New Play Committee, at muckrayk@aol.com or 954-478-1123; Jay Handelman, ATCA chair, at criticjay@gmail.com,or 941-361-4931; or Christopher Rawson, ATCA communications chair, at cchr@pitt.edu or 412-216-1944.

Steinberg/ATCA New Play Award (and $25,000) Goes to Yussef El Guindi

Tonight in Louisville at the Humana Festival of New American Plays, the American Theatre Critics Association New Plays Chairman William Hirschman announced that the winner of this year's Steinberg/ATCA New Play Award is Yussef El Guindi's "Pilgrims Musa and Sheri in the New World," which premiered at the ACT Repertory in Seattle.

The ATCA describes "Pilgrims Musa and Sheri in the New World" as "a gentle romantic comedy wrapped around a serious examination of issues facing immigrants today, much as they did in the past. An Egyptian immigrant who drives a cab strikes up a romance with a quirky American-born waitress, but the clash of cultures is only the hook El Guindi uses to explore the diversity of opinions even within ethnic groups in the struggle for assimilation and belief in the American dream."

El Guindi was born in Egypt, but spent much of his life in London before moving to Seattle, where he is now based. He received a BA from American University in Cairo and an MFA in playwriting at Carnegie-Mellon. His plays have been produced in theaters everywhere from Durham, North Carolina, to Anchorage, Alaska, and he has acted as resident playwright at Silk Road Theatre in Chicago. He was the recipient of the ATCA's Elizabeth Osborn Award for emerging playwrights in 2009.

As the winner of the Harold and Mimi Steinberg/ATCA New Play Award, El Guindi received a plaque and a check for $25,000 from the Harold and Mimi Steinberg Charitable Trust. That trust has been honoring the best new plays produced outside New York City in conjunction with the ATCA since 2000.

In addition to the main award, two other citations for noteworthy new plays were also handed out. Those two winners, who received plaques and checks for $7,500 from the Steinberg Foundation, were:

A. Rey Pamatmat for "Edith Can Shoot Things and Hit Them," which premiered at the Actors Theatre of Louisville during the 2011 Humana Festival. Pamatmat's play is a sweet, touching look at an unusual family composed of three children on their own. Edith, her brother Kenny, and Kenny's budding boyfriend Benji are three nice kids doing their best to stay in control in a parentless world.

Ken LaZebik's "On the Spectrum," which premiered at Minneapolis's Mixed Blood Theatre last November. "On the Spectrum" is a love story about two people who land in different places on the autism spectrum. He has Asperger's Syndrome but "passes" in society. She is proud of her autism and proclaims it's a difference, not a disorder. "Their love story reveals the contradictions between desire for acceptance and for achievement," says the ATCA press release.

When presenting the awards, Hirshman said, "Despite vanishing government support and faltering donations, America's regional theaters have persevered and prevailed as this country's preeminent crucible for vibrant and important new works. This year's submitted plays encompass a dizzying range of styles and themes, produced by a cadre of experienced and novice playwrights who are inarguable proof that theater remains a vital and relevant art form in the 21st century."

Looking for New Plays? Steinberg/ATCA New Play Nominations Announced

The American Theatre Critics Association has named the six finalists in this year's Steinberg/ATCA New Play Awards, which celebrate new work that premiered outside New York.

The Steinberg Awards give out $40,000 in awards to playwrights, with a top award of $25,000 and two "runners-up" citations of $7,500 each, making it the most generous national new play award in the country. The winners will be handed their checks, as well as commemorative plaques, on March 31st at Actors Theatre of Louisville during the Humana Festival of New American Plays. And I will be there, ready to tell you who gets the big prize.

The American Theatre Critics Association (ATCA) began presenting its regional new play awards in 1977, with funding from the Harold and Mimi Steinberg Foundation since 2000. Past honorees have included Lee Blessing, Nilo Cruz, Horton Foote, Craig Lucas, Arthur Miller, Marsha Norman, Lynn Nottage, August Wilson, and Lanford Wilson. Bill Cain took the award in 2011 for “9 Circles” and in 2010 for "Equivocation," becoming the first back-to-back winner.

Playwrights we've seen recently (or will soon see) in central Illinois, like Gina Gionfriddo, Deborah Zoe Laufer, Tracy Letts, Donald Margulies and Sarah Ruhl, have all received Steinberg/ATCA citations.

This year, the six nominees are:

Pilgrims Musa and Sheri in the New World, by Yussef El Guindi (ACT Repertory in Seattle WA)

Water By The Spoonful, by Quiara Alegria Hudes (Hartford Stage in Hartford CT)

The Spectrum, by Ken LaZebnik (Mixed Blood Theatre in Minneapolis MN)

Edith Can Shoot Things And Hit Them, by A. Rey Pamatmat (Humana Festival at Actors Theatre of Louisville KY)

A Twist of Water, by Caitlin Montanye Parrish (Route 66 Theatre at Theater Wit in Chicago IL)

Annapurna, by Sharr White (Magic Theatre, San Francisco CA)

Scroll down on this page to read more about each of the nominees. I loved "Edith Can Shoot Things and Hit Them" at last year's Humana Festival, reviewing the play here, and "A Twist of Water" was very well received in Chicago last year, including a famous visit from Mayor Rahm Emmanuel.