2012 recipients

Bodega Bay by Elisabeth Karlin
First Prize for Excellence in Playwriting
Kate Grant presents award to Elisabeth Karlin
Nobody notices or remembers Louise Finch.  With her life in shambles, this shy and awkward soul who has never ventured beyond Staten Island, sets out into the dangerous unknown to find the mother who left her and her troubled brother years earlier.  It is a strange and zany odyssey that hurls Louise across a country populated by the peculiar and turns this insignificant spectator into an active participant in a chaotic world.
Atomic Fireworks by Byron Loyd and Susan Morse
Citation for Excellence in Playwriting
Phyllis MacBryde, Mark Aaron, Byron Loyd and Nancy Hasty
On the Alabama/Tennessee state line, the town of Elsinora thrives on Atomic Fireworks, a pyrotechnical dealership and factory.  The owner, Mr. Hugh Chalmers Sr., is troubled by his two grown sons' acrimonious relationship.  Hugh Jr. is a member of a notorious secret organization.  Cecil boasts of a five-octave vocal range and aspires to conquer the world's great opera houses if he can elude the Vietnam War draft.  Both brothers are hot heads – capable of using the fireworks in Mr. Hugh's warehouse for more than a back-yard display.
Lunch With Kazan by Mark Levine
Citation for Excellence in Playwriting
Phyllis MacBryde and Mark Levine
C. Clayton Camp is an Academy Award winning film director facing his own mortality. Haunted by the cruel and neglectful relationship he had with his son, he  is hell bent on redeeming himself before the end comes.  Mickey Twitch is a charismatic and violent young man.  Just released from a correctional facility, he is on a quest for stardom following in the path of his idol James Dean.  Fate brings these two desperate souls together one evening and their unresolved conflicts and needs meet head on in a crash of human emotion.