The 2009 Wagner College Stanley Drama Award will be presented on Monday, April 6 at 6 p.m. at the historic Lambs Club, 3 W. 51st St. in Manhattan, America's first professional theatrical club.
The winner of the 53rd annual Stanley Award is playwright Sam Wallin of Vancouver, Washington, for his mystery drama, "Memory Fragments."
In the future, recording memories in 3-D may be as easy as recording video is today. In most cases, these memories will hold little interest to others - but when there's a murder, the memories of the deceased will be the first place the police will look for clues.
Detective James Cloud is something of a specialist when it comes to reviewing 3-D memories, so when a headless John Doe washes up on the shore of the local river, he's called in to crack the case.
As Detective Cloud digs through broken memories, examines recordings of psychiatric sessions, and interviews witnesses in virtual offices, he begins to realize that the death of his John Doe is the tip of a very large iceberg. In "Memory Fragments," no one is who they appear to be, and uncovering the truth might cost more than Cloud's corporate assets are worth.
"Memory Fragments" is a fast-paced mystery that toys with the deeper relationships between memory, evidence, theater and life, and asks the question: Without your memory, what evidence is there that you exist at all?
Presenting this year's Stanley Award will be Todd London, artistic director of New Dramatists, the nation's oldest center for the support and development of playwrights.
The Stanley Drama Award, given by the Wagner College Theater Department, has a long and distinguished record. Past winners include Terrence McNally's "This Side of the Door," Lonne Elder III's "Ceremonies in Dark Old Men," Jonathan Larson's "Rent" and Dylan Brody's "Mother May I." Among those judging for the Stanley Award have been playwrights Edward Albee and Paul Zindel, actresses Geraldine Page and Kim Stanley, and TV producer/pioneer talk-show host David Susskind.
The Stanley Drama Award was established in 1957 by Staten Island philanthropist Alma Guyon Timolat Stanley and endowed through the Stanley-Timolat Foundation. The national Stanley Award competition is administered by the Theater Department of Wagner College.
For more information about the Stanley Drama Award program, call Betty McComiskey at 718-420-4014, or e-mail her at emccomis@wagner.edu.
