2018 Recipients

2018 RECIPIENTS

To She Who Waits by Robert Clyman
First Prize for Excellence in Playwriting

Carol Goldberg and Robert Clyman

Voices from the Nominating Committee:
"To She Who Waits" is a neatly drawn play that takes you through the process of a family being destroyed by an extreme religious community. It gives insight to what can happen in any society where there is a lack of understanding based on fear and superstition.

I love the theatricality and the humanity of this play; Bob has created unforgettable characters in situations of the highest importance. It’s a big bite of life.

I could write pages on all the good things in "To She Who Waits". Clyman's utterly natural dialogue, the way he seamlessly transitions from scene to scene and from past to present, his perfect slow-drip of information. But what I liked most were the ideas it lodged in my head to keep me thinking about it weeks later.

What I love best about this play is the family dynamic and the great love of the mother/wife, a love she is able to hold onto against all odds.

A unique and enlightening inside picture of the murky world of mind-control and cults and how they can tear a family apart.
I found the conflict in "To She Who Waits" to be very compelling, driving the story forward and giving depth of insight into the underbelly of rigid religious beliefs and programming of the mind.

To She Who Waits

Since leaving her husband, Jack, and their increasingly extreme, religious community three years ago, Meg has been denied any contact with their 16 year-old daughter, Hannah. When Jack dies, the judge finally agrees to let Meg see her, so Hannah can decide where to live. But Meg will only have 12 visits to convince Hannah, who is openly hostile towards her, to give up her church family, the only life she has known, and the promise of salvation in the end days ahead, to move to a secular world, where the only person she'll know is the mother who left her behind.

To She Who Waits with Samantha Rivers Cole and Catherine Eaton

Catherine Eaton and Kathleen Swan

Little Images by Glenda Frank
Citation for Excellence in Playwriting

Carol Goldberg and Glenda Frank

Voices from the Nominating Committee:
Glenda Frank creates well drawn characters that you can really understand and relate to. Little Images is fascinating .We want to know more about Lee Krasner after the death of her husband Jackson Pollock.

"Little Images" is ambitious, timely, and thoughtful, and it makes a point that you just can't ignore.

A fascinating and deeply felt look at the painter Lee Krasner that (finally) brings her out from behind the shadow of her husband Jackson Pollock.

A thoughtful insight into the life and sacrifice of abstract expressionist Lee Krasner as she wrestles with her artistic demons, navigates her volatile marriage to Jackson Pollock and ultimately triumphs in her journey as a pioneering female artist - that journey through time, that revealed so much about the sacrifice and determination of Lee and her enduring spirit to express her art.

Little Images

When the Abstract Expressionist painter Lee Krasner knocked on Jackson Pollock's door, she began a journey that would take her through passion and degradation, a three year eclipse of the heart (painter's block) and on to fame and one-woman shows at major museums. She was indomitable, an icon.

Little Images with Deb Armelino and Anne Newhall

Deb Armelino, Anne Newhall, Dan Kirby
and Kathryn Grant

Waiting by Donna Kaz
Citation for Excellence in Playwriting

Carol Goldberg and Donna Kaz

Voices from the Nominating Committee:
It’s very hard to draw a collective portrait of a group of people while also creating interesting, individual characters. Donna’s done that here, very entertainingly.

We Love the way Donna plays with mind, body and spirit in her writing. To be the best of who we are comes through in her writing. Her plays are fun to perform and watch. If you like to laugh, Donna can help.

Waiting is a wonderfully good time. It's a rollicking, side-busting ride from start to finish.

A fast-moving warm-hearted but edgy comedy, which captures the lighter and darker sides of struggling artists in pursuit of their dream.
What I really liked about "Waiting" was how well the playwright captured the frenetic world of the "survival job" where artists struggle to make ends meet while pursuing their passion.

Waiting

Waiting is the story of a small town girl, Lucy, who dreams of making it as an actress in New York City. The day Lucy gets off the bus she lands her first job on Broadway - waiting on tables in a restaurant. In an over-the-top parody of Broadway and the restaurant business, Waiting explores the performative aspects of restaurants and asks the question: how can waiters in New York City play any other part?