Mark Schultz Wins Kesselring Prize; Norris Also Honored

Playwright Mark Schultz is the recipient of The National Arts Club's 2006 Kesselring Prize for Playwriting. The $15,000 prize is awarded annually to a playwright of exceptional promise.

The club's president, O. Aldon James, Jr., also announced today that Bruce Norris will receive the Kesselring's Honorable Mention, which comes with a $5,000 prize.

Now in its 26th year, The National Arts Club annually invites theaters from across the United States to nominate playwrights who show exceptional promise, but have not yet received prominent national attention. The nominated playwrights, in turn, submit a play of their choice to the Kesselring Prize committee for award consideration.

Mark Schultz was nominated by New York's Manhattan Class Company. He submitted his play A Brief History of Helen of Troy, which was produced to much acclaim last season under the title Everything Will Be Different, at the Soho Rep in New York.

Norris, who was nominated by Steppenwolf Theatre Company in Chicago, submitted his play The Pain and the Itch, which is presently receiving its New York premiere at Playwrights Horizons Off-Broadway.

The awards to Schultz and Norris will be presented on Sunday, November 19th at 5 PM at a ceremony at The National Arts Club in New York City. The festivities will also feature a staged reading of a play (TBA) by Mr. Schultz, directed by Michael Parva, Artistic Director of The Directors Company in New York and resident director of the annual Kesselring Prize readings.

In addition to Schultz and Norris, the other nominated playwrights and their respective nominating theatres for the 2006 Kesselring Prize are:

 Actors Theatre of Louisville - Jordan Harrison, Act a Lady
 Center Theatre Group (Mark Taper Forum) - Frank Basloe, Linked
 The Denver Center Theatre Company - Jason Grote, 1001
 The Goodman Theatre - Noah Haidle, Vigils
 The Magic Theatre - Mat Smart, The Hopper Collection
 New Dramatists - Jorge Ignacio Cortinas, Bird in the Hand
 Philadelphia Theatre Company - Gina Gionfriddo, After Ashley
 Primary Stages - Eric Henry Sanders, The Heliopause
 Seattle Repertory Theatre - Victoria Stewart, Hardball
 South Coast Repertory - Tanya Barfield, Blue Door
 Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company - S.M. Shephard-Massat, Starving

Mark Schultz is a founding member and artistic associate of Theater Mitu, a member of Rising Phoenix Rep, and Co-Coordinator of MCC Theater's Playwrights' Coalition. His other plays include Last, The Place Where, The Nativity Sonata, Gift, and Still. He holds an MFA in playwriting from Columbia University.

Well-known in Chicago's theatre community, Bruce Norris has an ongoing collaboration with the Steppenwolf Theatre, where many of his plays have been commissioned and produced, including The Infidel, Purple Heart, We All Went Down to Amsterdam, and The Unmentionables. Steppenwolf's production of The Pain and the Itch won the 2005 Joseph Jefferson Award for Best New Work.

The winners were chosen by three distinguished judges: playwright John Guare; playwright and performer Eric Bogosian; and Lincoln Center's dramaturg Anne Cattaneo.

Named in honor of beloved playwright Joseph Kesselring, author of Arsenic and Old Lace, the Kesselring Prize was first presented by The National Arts Club in 1980. Previous winners include David Auburn, Melissa James Gibson, Tony Kushner, Nicky Silver, Anna Deavere Smith, David Lindsay-Abaire, Jose Rivera, Heather McDonald, Philip Kan Gotanda, Kira Obolensky, Tracey Scott Wilson, and Marion McClinton.