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PRESS
RELEASE
SUSAN
SMITH BLACKBURN PRIZE
2012
FINALISTS ANNOUNCED
PRESTIGIOUS AWARD FOR DISTINGUISHED FEMALE
PLAYWRIGHTS
CELEBRATES THIRTY- FOURTH YEAR
“The emergence of women playwrights over the history of the
Susan Smith Blackburn Prize has spearheaded a change in the
position of women in every realm of the theater.”
– Wendy
Wasserstein, 1988 winner for The Heidi Chronicles
The Susan Smith Blackburn Prize has announced 10 Finalists
for its prestigious playwriting award, now celebrating its thirty-fourth
year.
The ten Finalists for the 2011-2012 Susan Smith Blackburn
Prize, chosen from over 100 submitted plays, are:
Johnna Adams – Gidion’s Knot (U.S.); Alice Birch
– Many Moons (U.K.); Madeleine George - Seven Homeless
Mammoths Wander New England (U.S.); Jennifer Haley –
The Nether (U.S.); Nancy Harris – No Romance (Ireland);
Zinnie Harris – The Wheel (U.K.), Jaki McCarrick
– Belfast Girls (U.K.), Molly Smith Metzler – Close Up
Space (U.S.); Meg Miroshnik - The Fairytale Lives of
Russian Girls (U.S.); Alexis Zegerman – The Steingolds
(U.K.).
The Winner of the 2011-2012 Susan Smith Blackburn Prize
will be named at the Awards Presentation on February 28th in
London.
The Susan Smith Blackburn Prize, co-founded by Emilie
S. Kilgore and William Blackburn, annually honors an outstanding
new English-language play by a woman. For over three decades,
the Prize has encouraged women playwrights and drawn attention
to notable new works. Many of the Winners have gone on to receive
other honors, including Tony Awards and The Pulitzer Prize.
The Finalist plays also benefit from the exposure, which generates
interest and productions at theater companies across North America
and the United Kingdom.
The 2011-2012 Susan Smith Blackburn Prize Winner will
be awarded $20,000, and will also receive a signed and numbered
print by renowned artist Willem de Kooning, created especially
for the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize. Each of the additional
Finalists will receive $1,000.
The international panel of judges for the 2012 Susan Smith
Blackburn Prize includes U.S. judges Randy Gener, award-winning
writer/editor/critic; Martha Lavey, Artistic Director
of the Steppenwolf Theatre (Chicago); and Frances McDormand,
Oscar and Tony Award-winning film and stage star. U.K. judges
are Jonathan Church, Artistic Director of the Chichester
Festival Theatre; Ben Power, Associate Director of the
National Theatre; and Imogen Stubbs, Actress/Writer/Director
and stage and screen star.
The Houston-based Susan Smith Blackburn Prize received the
2010 Theatre Communications Group's National Funder Award. The
annual honor goes to a company, foundation or other entity for
“leadership and sustained national support of theater in
America.”
The Susan Smith Blackburn Prize reflects the values
and interests of Susan Smith Blackburn, noted American actress
and writer who lived in London during the last 15 years of her
life. She died in 1977 at the age of 42. Over 300 plays have
been chosen as Finalists since the Prize was instituted in 1977.
Over 80 of them are frequently produced in the United States
today. Seven Blackburn Finalist plays have gone on to win the
Pulitzer Prize in Drama. The authors of those plays, Margaret
Edson, Beth Henley, Marsha Norman, Lynn Nottage, Suzan-Lori
Parks, Paula Vogel and Wendy Wasserstein are the only women
to have done so since the Blackburn Prize was first established.
American playwright Katori Hall received the 2010- 2011 Susan
Smith Blackburn Prize for her play HurtVillage, which was nominated
by Signature Theatre Company (New York), where the play will
premiere on February 7.
Other recipients of the Prize include Chloe Moss’s This
Wide Night, Judith Thompson’s Palace of the End,
Gurpreet Kaur Bhatti's Behzti(Dishonour), Sarah Ruhl's
The Clean House, Dael Orlandersmith's Yellowman,
Cheryl West’s Before It Hits Home, Susan Miller's A
Map of Doubt and Rescue, Gina Gionfriddo's U.S. Drag,
Bridget Carpenter's Fall, Charlotte Jones' Humble
Boy, Naomi Wallace’s One Flea Spare, Wendy Kesselman’s
My Sister in this House, Jessica Goldberg's Refuge,
Paula Vogel's How I Learned to Drive, Moira Buffini's
Silence and Caryl Churchill’s Serious Money.
Former judges of The Susan Smith Blackburn Prize over
the past thirty-three years are a Who’s Who of the English-speaking
theatre and include, Edward Albee, Eileen Atkins, Blair Brown,
Zoe Caldwell, Jill Clayburgh, Glenn Close, Harold Clurman, Colleen
Dewhurst, Ralph Fiennes, John Guare, A.R. Gurney, David Hare,
Doug Hughes, Judith Ivey, Tony Kushner, Janet McTeer, Marsha
Norman, Joan Plowright, Marian Seldes, Fiona Shaw, Tom Stoppard,
Meryl Streep, Jessica Tandy, Paula Vogel, Wendy Wasserstein,
August Wilson and Joanne Woodward among nearly 200 artists in
the United States, the United Kingdom and Ireland.
Each year artistic directors and prominent professionals
in the theatre throughout the English-speaking world are invited
to submit plays. Plays are eligible whether or not they have
been produced, but any premiere production must have occurred
within the preceding year. Each script receives multiple readings
by members of an international reading committee that then selects
ten Finalists. All six judges read each Finalist’s play.
ABOUT THE FINALISTS:
Johnna Adams (U.S.) Gidion’s Knot
Submitted
by The Repertory Theatre of St. Louis
She is the 2011
recipient of the Princess Grace Award and a 2012 graduate of
the Hunter College Playwriting MFA program, led by Tina Howe.
On her wild ride as a playwright so far, she has mingled with
an all-inmate cast at the Iowa Women’s Correctional Institution’s
production of her play In the Absence of Angels,(2006)
and participated in a fully nude talkback in front of a nude
audience at the Naturist Society’s Western Naturist Gathering
at the Lupin Naturist Club (Nude on the Beach, 2002).
Other plays include Nurture; Alcestis in Baghdad; The Anguisher;
Hripsime; Hued Moll; Lickspittles, Buttonholers and Damned Pernicious
Go-Betweens; The Angel Eaters Trilogy (Angel Eaters, Rattlers,
and 8 Little Antichrists); Sans Merci, Cockfighters and
The Sacred Geometry of S&M Porn. She is a past Reva
Shiner Award winner, winner of the OC Weekly’s Best Original
Play award (twice), finalist for the Christopher Brian Wolk
Award, finalist for the William Saroyan Prize and New York Innovative
Theatre Award nominee. Johnna’s plays Angel Eaters, Rattlers,
8 Little Antichrists, Sans Merci, Cockfighters and The
Sacred Geometry of S&M Porn are published by Original
Works Publishing (www.originalworksonline.com)
Alice Birch (U.K.) Many Moons
Submitted by Theatre
503
Her debut full-length production, Many Moons,
played at the Theatre 503 to excellent reviews in the Spring
of 2011. She has previously been part of the Royal Court Theatre
Young Writer’s Invitation Programme (2005-2007), BBC 24 Degrees
writing scheme (2008-09; for which she was selected by the BBC
and Royal Court) and was on attachment to the National Theatre
Studio in the Spring of 2010. Her work has also been included
in the Old Vic 24 Hour Plays and the Paines Plough-produced
Come to Where I’m From Season, both 2010. Alice is currently
part of The Big Room project with Channel 4 and Paines Plough;
a nine month project for five writers. In 2010, she was on attachment
to the Royal Court Theatre. Previous writing credits include
Jess/Jim (24 Hour Film Project 2011), Contact
(Rose Bruford), PLAYlist (Theatre 503), Bonfires(Arcola/Miniaturists),
Come to Where I’m From (Paines Plough), 24 Hour Plays
(Old Vic New Voices), and Limbs (nabakov Present:Tense).
Alice is currently working with East 15, Curious Directive,
RashDash and is developing her play with the National Theatre.
Her play, Little Light is in development and she will
be attached to the Royal Court Theatre later this year.Alice
graduated from Exeter University with a First Class degree in
English in 2009. Many Moons is her first full-length
play.
Madeleine George (U.S.) Seven Homeless Mammoths Wander
New England
Submitted by Clubbed Thumb
Seven
Homeless Mammoths Wander New England just enjoyed an extended
run at New Jersey’s Two Rivers Theatre Co. Other plays by George
include The Zero Hour and Precious Little. Her
work has been produced and developed by 13P, Clubbed Thumb,
Soho Rep, Playwrights Horizons, New York Theatre Workshop, City
Theatre in Pittsburgh, About Face Theatre in Chicago, The Playwrights’
Center/Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis, and the O'Neill Playwrights
Conference. Madeleine has received a MacDowell Fellowship, the
Princess Grace Playwriting Award, the Jane Chambers Award, as
well as commissions from Manhattan Theatre Club and Playwrights
Horizons. She is a resident playwright at New Dramatists, an
alum of the Soho Rep Writer/Director Lab and the Lark Playwrights’
Workshop, and a founding member of the Obie-Award-winning playwrights
collective 13P (Thirteen Playwrights, Inc.: www.13p.org).
She lives in Brooklyn.
Jennifer Haley (U.S.) The Nether
Submitted by
Center Theatre Group
Jennifer Haley is a Los Angeles-based
playwright whose work has been seen around the U.S., most recently
at the 2011 O’Neill National Playwrights Conference and the
Lark Play Development Center, where she developed The Nether.
Her plays include Neighborhood 3: Requisition of Doom,
which premiered at the Actors Theatre of Louisville 2008 Humana
Festival and continues to see productions nation-wide, Breadcrumbs,
which premiered at the 2010 Contemporary American Theatre Festival,
and Froggy, workshopped at the 2011 Sundance Theatre
Lab, The Banff Centre and American Conservatory Theater. Her
plays have also been presented at Summer Play Festival in New
York, PlayPenn Playwrights Conference, Lincoln Center Director’s
Lab, Seven Devils Playwrights Conference and the Page 73 Productions
Summer Residency at Yale, among other venues. She is a former
fellow of the MacDowell Colony and Millay Colony for the Arts,
and her work is published by Samuel French and Playscripts,
Inc. Jennifer is a member of the 2011-2012 Center Theatre Group
Writers' Workshop. In 2009 she founded the Playwrights Union,
a network of dramatic writers in Los Angeles. You can find out
more about her at www.jenniferhaley.com.
Nancy Harris (Ireland) No Romance
Submitted
by the Abbey Theatre
A hit at the Abbey Theatre (Dublin)
in 2011, No Romance is Nancy’s first original play. It
was commissioned by the Abbey Theatre. It is nominated for “Best
New Play” in the Irish Times Irish Theatre Awards, which will
be announced at the end of February. Her new play, Our New
Girl, is currently enjoying an extended run at the Bush
Theatre (London). In April/May, The Man With The Disturbingly
Smelly Foot, adapted from Sophocles’ Philoctetes,
will open at the Unicorn Theatre, London. Other theatre credits
include The Kreutzer Sonata (Gate Theatre, London), Little
Dolls (Bush Theatre Broken Space Season) and Love in
a Glass Jar (Abbey Theatre 20 Love Season). The Kreutzer
Sonata is due to tour to the U.S. where it will run at La
MaMa in March of 2012. She has also been a writer on attachment
at the Soho Theatre and National Theatre Studio. Her radio credits
include Love in a Glass Jar and the five part Woman’s Hour drama
series Blood in the Bridal Shop co-written with Louise
Ramsden, both for BBC Radio 4. Nancy has also written for television.
She is currently the Pearson Playwright in Residence 2011 at
the Bush Theatre, London.
Zinnie Harris (U.K.) The Wheel
Submitted by
National Theatre of Scotland
Zinnie Harris is a playwright,
screenwriter and theatre director. Her plays include The
Wheel (National Theatre of Scotland, 2011) joint winner
of The 2011 Amnesty International Freedom of Expression Award
and a Fringe First Award, The Panel (Tricycle Theatre,
London 2010); The Garden (Traverse Theatre, 2009); Fall
(Traverse Theatre, 2008); Julie (National Theatre of
Scotland, 2006) Solstice (RSC, 2005); Midwinter
(RSC, 2004); Nightingale and Chase (Royal Court, 2001);
Further than the Furthest Thing (Royal National Theatre/Tron
Theatre and then British Council tour to South Africa 2000 /
/1) winner of the Peggy Ramsay Playwrighting Award, and John
Whiting Award and Fringe First Award, and By Many Wounds
(Hampstead Theatre). She also wrote a new version of A Doll’s
House for the Donmar Warehouse in 2010. Zinnie also writes
for television and radio. Her directing work includes While
You Lie (Traverse Theatre), Julie (National Theatre
of Scotland); Solstice and Midwinter (both RSC);
Gilt (7:84); Dealers Choice (Tron Theatre Company);
Master of the House (BBC Radio Four) and Cracked
(2001 Edinburgh Fringe First Award). She was a Writer in Residence
at the RSC from 2000-2001.
Molly Smith Metzler (U.S.) Close Up Space
Submitted
by Manhattan Theatre Club
Molly Smith Metzler grew up
Kingston, NY. She is the author of Elemeno Pea (South
Coast Rep, Humana Festival 2011), Close Up Space (Manhattan
Theatre Club), Training Wisteria (SPF, Cherry Lane Mentor
Project) and Carve. Her work has been developed by The
O’Neill Theatre Center, MTC, Chautauqua Theater Company, Williamstown
Theatre Festival, hotINK, Playwrights Horizons, and The Kennedy
Center, where she was the winner of three KCACTF awards including
the Kennedy Center National Student Playwrighting Award. Molly
is a member of EST, Ars Nova Play Group, and Primary Stages
writing group; she holds graduate degrees from Boston University,
NYU Tisch, and The Juilliard School, where she was a two-time
recipient of the Le Comte du Nouy Prize from Lincoln Center.
Molly lives in Brooklyn and is currently working on new plays
for South Coast Rep, Actors Theatre of Louisville, and Manhattan
Theatre Club.
Meg Miroshnik (U.S.) The Fairytale Lives of Russian
Girls
Submitted by Alliance Theatre
Meg Miroshnik’s
plays include The Droll {Or, a Stage-Play about the
END of Theatre}, The Tall Girls, and A Portrait
of the Woman as a Young Artist. Her play The Fairytale
Lives of Russian Girls (Or, девушки) is the winner of the
2011-2012 Kendeda Graduate Playwriting Award and will open at
the Alliance Theatre in February 2012 (directed by Eric Rosen);
in a Russian translation by Maria Kroupnik, the play is the
winner of the Masterskaya na Begavoi and will be produced by
the Moscow Playwright and Director Center (directed by Ilya
Shagalov). The Droll was featured in the 2011 Pacific
Playwrights Festival at South Coast Repertory (directed by David
Chambers). Her work has been produced or developed by South
Coast Repertory, the Kennedy Center, Lark New Play Development
Center, Yale Cabaret, the Carlotta Festival at Yale, Perishable
Theatre, WordBRIDGE Playwrights Laboratory, One Coast Collaboration,
and published in Best American Short Plays, 2008-2009 (Applause,
2010). She has taught playwriting at Wesleyan University and
New Haven’s Cooperative Arts and Humanities High School. Upcoming
projects include an adaptation of the libretto for Shostakovich’s
opera Moscow, Cheryomushki (re-orchestration by Gerard McBurney,
directed by Mike Donahue) for Chicago Opera Theater in April
2012 and a commission for a new play for South Coast Repertory.
She holds an MFA in Playwriting from the Yale School of Drama
where she studied with Paula Vogel.
Jaki McCarrick (U.K.) Belfast Girls
Submitted
by King’s Head Theatre
Jaki McCarrick is a graduate of
Trinity College, Dublin. Her first play, The Mushroom Pickers,
won the 2005 Scottish Drama Association's National Playwriting
Competition, and premiered at the Southwark Playhouse in London
in 2006 and in New York in 2009. She has published poetry, and
short stories in The Dublin Review, Irish Pages, Verbal Arts
Magazine, Cyphers, Brace - published by Comma Press, The Frogmore
Papers, Wasafiri Magazine. She was Writer-in-Residence at the
Tyrone Guthrie Centre for the Pushkin Trust in July 2007. She
won first prize in the 2009 Northern Ireland Spinetinglers Dark
Fiction competition and was selected for the 2009 Poetry Ireland
Introduction series of emerging poets. Her play, Leopoldville,
selected by David Hare as a Finalist in the 2010 Yale Drama
Series Playwriting Competition; the play won the 2010 Papatango
New Writing Award and in 2010 was staged at the Tristan Bates
Theatre in London to much critical acclaim. In 2010, Jaki was
awarded a bursary in Literature from the Arts Council of Ireland
and also received a Peggy Ramsay Award in recognition of her
playwriting. Her short story, The Visit, won the 2010
Wasafiri Short Fiction Prize and will appear in the 2012 Anthology
of Best British Short Stories. She also recently won the first
Liverpool Lennon (Paper) Poetry Competition for her poem, “The
Selkie of Dorinish”. Her most recent play, Belfast Girls,
was staged at the Kings Head Theatre, London, to much acclaim
in 2011. In 2012 she is on attachment to the National Theatre
Studio (London).
Alexis Zegerman (U.K.) The Steingolds
Submitted
by Playful Productions
Alexis is a writer and actress.
She studied at Edinburgh University and the Central School of
Speech and Drama in London. Alexis began writing on the Royal
Court Young Writers’ Programme. She became Pearson Writer-in-Residence
at Hampstead Theatre in 2007, where her play Lucky Seven
premiered in November 2008. It has since received further productions
in the UK and abroad. Her new play The Steingolds recently
workshopped at the National Theatre Studio. Short plays include
I Ran the World for the Royal Court, and Noise
at Soho Theatre, London (winner of the Westminster Prize for
New Playwriting 2003). Her play Killing Brando opened
at the Young Vic as part of Paines Plough’s Wild Lunch in 2004,
and was later produced at Òran Mór in Glasgow
for their ‘A Play, a Pie and a Pint’ season. Her short film
The Honeymoon Suite won the Pears Film Fund Award and
received further funding from Working Title. The film premiered
at the opening gala of the UK Jewish Film Festival at Leicester
Square and has since played at international festivals including
Palm Springs, New York City Film Festival, Encounters in Bristol
and the London Short Film Festival. Alexis was recently selected
as one of 25 up-and-coming talents in British film, taking part
in Think-Shoot-Distribute, an initiative set up by the London
Film Festival. Her plays for BBC Radio 4 include Ronnie Gecko
(Richard Imison Award nomination), Are You Sure?, The
Singing Butler, Jump and Déjà Vu
(special commendation Prix Europa 2009). She also wrote the
Radio 4 comedy series School Runs and a second series
Mum’s on the Run. As an actress Alexis has worked with
Mike Leigh both on stage and screen – in his play Two Thousand
Years at the National Theatre, and on film in the part of
Zoe in Happy-Go-Lucky for which she won a British Independent
Film Award for Best Supporting Actress and a London Film Critics’
Circle nomination. Other feature films include Storm
and Albatross. TV work includes Strange and U
Be Dead. Other theatre work includes plays at the Royal
Court and the Bush.
www.blackburnprize.org
# # #
February 1, 2012
Susan Smith Blackburn Prize
Contacts:
U.S. Administrator: Leslie Swackhamer - P: 206-683-5369
/ lswackhamer@gmail.com
London Administrator: Caroline Keely - P 01588650739/07811582256/
caroline@ckeely.co.uk
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