Bay Area Playwright Lauren Gunderson's I AND YOU Receives Mimi Steinberg/ATCA New Play Award

ATCA has named Lauren Gunderson's I and You recipient of the Harold and Mimi Steinberg/ATCA New Play Award, recognizing playwrights for scripts that premiered professionally outside New York City during 2013.

Gunderson's delicate but droll play about teenagers exploring life and death received $25,000 and a commemorative plaque at the Humana Festival of New American Plays at Actors Theatre of Louisville on April 5.

Two citations that carry $7,500 each were presented toChristopher Demos-Brown for Fear Up Harsh and Martin Zimmerman for Seven Spots on the Sun.

At $40,000, Steinberg/ATCA is the largest national new play award program recognizing regional theaters as the crucible for new plays in the United States.

In 1977, ATCA began to honor new plays produced at theaters outside New York City, where there are many awards. Since 2000, the award has been generously funded by the Harold and Mimi Steinberg Charitable Trust.

I and You, which has already had three productions, focuses on Caroline, a cranky high school student in desperate need of a liver transplant. She is enticed by classmate Anthony, a level-headed basketball star with a taste for English lit, into helping him finish a school project deconstructing Whitman'sLeaves of Grass. As their quirky relationship evolves, they explore the meaning of life and death without a shred of condescension or pretentiousness. Awash in humor and sharp insights, the play grows quietly toward a surprising, overwhelmingly moving conclusion. It premiered in October at Marin Theatre Company as part of the National New Play Network's rolling world premiere program.

Gunderson is a prolific playwright, screenwriter, teacher and short story author based in the San Francisco area, who had five world premieres in 2013 and 2014. Her works includeExit Pursued by a Bear, Leap, Toil & Trouble, By and By, Silent Sky and Bauer. A Playwright in Resident at The Playwrights Foundation, she is a Dramatists Guild member and was a member of Just Theatre's New Play Lab.

Demos-Brown's Fear Up Harsh is the secret backstory to the awarding of a Congressional Medal of Honor to a wounded Marine. The truth emerges in this mercilessly penetrating interrogation about how our need for heroes - a need even among the heroes themselves - can trump the very values of truth, honor and loyalty that they fought to preserve. The play received its world premiere at Zoetic Stage in Miami in November.

Zimmerman's Seven Spots on the Sun is a meld of magical realism and political issues. It is an affecting tale that examines whether forgiveness is truly possible, set against the ravages of civil war, lust, plague and a consuming need for vengeance. A widowed doctor in a small village and a newly-married soldier charged with subduing dissent take converging journeys towards redemption in this harrowing play that was unveiled at Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park in October.

Hirschman said this year's entries validated the future of a vibrant 21st Century theater that vividly mirrors today's issues. "The plays reflect themes and settings encompassing bullying, racism, sexual identity in a repressive society, a street-level view of the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina and genocidal civil war. Some works completely re-invented established 20th century works likeThe Crucible, The Seagull and The Heiress for a new century audience. They showed how technology is creating previously unimagined ethical questions and asked tough questions about how the economic downtown has challenged what people thought were their unshakeable values."

Past honorees of ATCA's New Play Award have included Lanford Wilson, Marsha Norman, August Wilson, Arthur Miller, Mac Wellman, Donald Margulies, Lynn Nottage, Moises Kaufman and Craig Lucas. Last year's honoree was Robert Schenkkan's All The Way, which subsequently opened on Broadway. For a full list of 38 years of winners and runners-up, go to www.americantheatrecritics.org and click on Steinberg-ATCA under Awards.

The winners were selected from 28 eligible scripts submitted by ATCA members to a committee of 19 theater critics, led by chairman Wm. F. Hirschman, FloridaTheaterOnStage.com. Other members are Misha Berson, Seattle Times; Bruce Burgun, freelance (Bloomington, Ind.); Lindsay Christians, The Capital Times (Madison, Wisc.); Mark Cofta, Philadelphia City Paper; Pam Harbaugh, Florida Today (Melbourne); Lou Harry, Indianapolis Business Journal/IBJ.com; Michael P. Howley, theatremontgomery.blogspot.com; Erin Keane, Louisville Public Media; Jerry Kraft, www.SeattleActor.com (Port Angeles, Wash.); Elizabeth Maupin, Orlando; Julius Novick, veteran critic and professor (New York City); Kathryn Osenlund, CurtainUp, Phindie (Philadelphia); Wendy Parker, Midlothian, Va.; Nelson Pressley, Washington Post; David Sheward, ArtsinNY.com, Theaterlife.com, NewYork.com; Herb Simpson, artesmagazine.com/theater and totaltheater.com (Geneseo, N.Y.); Steve Treacy, Port Townsend Leader; and Tim Treanor, DC Theater Scene.

The Harold and Mimi Steinberg Charitable Trust was created in 1986 by Harold Steinberg on behalf of himself and his late wife. Pursuing its primary mission to support the American theater, it has provided grants totaling millions of dollars for new productions of American plays and educational programs for those who may not ordinarily experience live theater.

ATCA was founded in 1974 and works to raise critical standards and public awareness of critics' functions and responsibilities. The only national association of professional theater critics, with members working for newspapers, magazines, radio and television stations and websites, ATCA is affiliated with the International Association of Theatre Critics, a UNESCO-affiliated organization that sponsors seminars and congresses worldwide.

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