Annual Kleban Award Given David Lindsay-Abaire

 On behalf of the Kleban Foundation, New Dramatists is pleased to announce that the 18th Annual Kleban Award for the most promising musical theater lyricist has gone to David Lindsay-Abaire.  Adjudication of the Award for most promising librettist resulted in a tie between LAURA HARRINGTON and co-librettists BILL SOLLY and DONALD WARD. 
 
The Kleban Foundation was established in 1988 under the will of Edward L. Kleban, best known as the Tony® and Pulitzer Prize award winner for the musical A Chorus Line.  The will made provision for two annual Awards, each in the amount of $100,000 payable over two years, to be given to the most promising librettist and lyricist in American Musical Theater.  The 2008 awards will be presented on June 4, 2008, (by invitation only) in a private ceremony at ASCAP.  The judges making the final determination this year were BETH BLICKERS, LINDA KLINE, and Gilbert Parker. 
 
ABOUT THE 2008 KLEBAN AWARD WINNERS
 
David Lindsay-Abaire is the book and lyric writer for SHREK THE MUSICAL, which premieres on Broadway this fall. Most recently, he was awarded the 2007 Pulitzer Prize for Drama for his play Rabbit Hole, which premiered on Broadway at MTC's Biltmore Theater.  The play also received five Tony Award nominations including Best Play, a Dramatists Guild Hull-Warriner Award nomination, and the Spirit of America Award from the Barbara Barondess MacLean Foundation.  His other plays include Fuddy Meers, Kimberly Akimbo, Wonder of the World and A Devil Inside, among others.  David is currently writing the book and lyrics for the Broadway-bound musical Shrek with composer Jeanine Tesori.  In addition to his work in theater, David wrote the screenplay for the upcoming Newline feature Inkheart, and is currently at work on screen adaptations of his plays Rabbit Hole for 20th Century Fox, starring Nicole Kidman, and Kimberly Akimbo for Dreamworks and Killer Films. David is a proud New Dramatists alum, a graduate of Sarah Lawrence College and the Juilliard School, as well as a member of the WGA and the Dramatists Guild Council.

LAURA HARRINGTON'S recent credits include: Alice Unwrapped, (Music & Lyrics: Jenny Giering), a Premieres Production at the Zipper Theatre, NY, Crossing Brooklyn (Music: Jenny Giering), Transport Group, NY, Resurrection, Houston Grand Opera (Music: Tod Machover),  CD: Albany Records.  N (Bonaparte), Pilgrim Theatre, Boston, toured to the KO Festival, published in Theatre Forum.  Hallowed Ground, Boston IRNE Award for Best New Play, New Orleans "Big Easy" Award.  Martin Guerre (Music: Roger Ames), Hartford Stage Company, directed by Mark Lamos, nominated for 3 CT Critics Circle Awards, including "Outstanding Musical."  Marathon Dancing, directed by Anne Bogart, En Garde Arts, NYC, and Munich, Germany.  The Perfect 36 (Music: Mel Marvin), Tennessee Repertory Theatre, NAMT Festival.  Lucy's Lapses, (Music: Christopher Drobny), Portland Opera and Playwrights Horizons.  Laura is currently writing a series of choral cantatas with Roger Ames and a new opera with Deborah Drattell.  She teaches playwriting at M.I.T and is a frequent guest artist at Tufts, Harvard, Wellesley, etc.  She has twice won both the MA Cultural Council Award in playwriting and the Clauder Competition for best new play in New England.  Other awards include a Bunting Institute Fellowship at Harvard/ Radcliffe, a Whiting Foundation Grant-in-Aid, the Joseph Kesselring Award for Drama, a New England Emmy, and a Quebec Cinemateque Award.  She is a New Dramatists alum and a member of the Dramatist Guild.
 
BILL SOLLY and DONALD WARD have co-authored the books for eight musicals, the best-known being The Great American Backstage Musical and the Off Broadway hit Boy Meets Boy.  Sweet William, submitted for this year's Kleban Award, imagines what might have happened in the year 1586 when the young Will Shakespeare left his home in Stratford-on-Avon and set off on the road to London.  Tent Show tells the story of Moses as seen through the eyes of his father-in-law, Jethro.  Their other musicals are Starring in Alphabetical Order, 100 Miles from Nowhere, It Must be Magic and an adaptation of Hans Christian Andersen's The Snow Queen.  In addition to writing the music and lyrics for all of the above, Bill Solly has written the musicals Smile & Say Hello (with Chris Weikel) based on his CD Gay Friendly, Let the Piper Come and many musicals for children, of which the best-known is The Cat in the Castle.  Donald Ward has published two mystery novels, Death Takes the Stage and Our Little Secret and has completed a third, Nothing Like a Dame.  Both authors are members of the Dramatists Guild.  Bill Solly is also a member of ASCAP.
 
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Submission guidelines and an application for the 2008-09 Kleban Awards are attached to this press release.  They are available at the New Dramatists website, www.newdramatists.org.  The postmark deadline for the next competition is September 15, 2008.