Allston James Repeat Recipient Of Bill Broyles Award For THE TREE TALK

The Marine Corps Heritage Foundation has announced that Allston James' drama The Tree Talk is the recipient of the 2018 LT William Broyles Award presented annually for Distinguished Stage or Screen Play. James received the award earlier in 2015 for his play Suribachi, which won the British Theatre Challenge's Audience Appreciation Award later that year in London.

Named for Vietnam veteran and screenwriter William "Bill" Broyles (Apollo 13, Jarhead, Flags of Our Fathers, Khe Sanh, Cast Away), the award is presented for a work that distinguishes Marine Corps history or heritage. The award includes a gold medal, cash award and an engraved commemorative brick at Semper Fidelis Memorial Park, and will be presented at a Marine Corps Heritage Foundation's ceremony on Saturday, April 28, 2018, at the National Museum of the Marine Corps , Quantico, Virginia. Other MCHF awards categories include feature writing, fiction, and photojournalism.

James says, "The Tree Talk centers on several generations of a family whose Marines made the ultimate sacrifice. A young girl discovers the true nature of 'living memory' and, in the words of William Faulkner, learns how families are meant to 'not merely endure, but prevail'."

James' stage plays have been performed in London, New York, California, and elsewhere. His drama I Knew King When He Was Nobody was Long-listed for the Kenneth Branagh Award for New Drama Writing in 2017. Professor Emeritus of Humanities & English and author of Attic Light, a Vietnam memoir, James served as a Lieutenant with the U. S. Army's First Infantry Division in Tay Ninh Province as an artillery FO in 1969.