Clare Barron Receives Vineyard Theatre's Paula Vogel Award

Vineyard Theatre today announced that Clare Barron has been awarded the 2014 Paula Vogel Playwriting Award, presented annually to an emerging playwright of exceptional promise.

Ms. Barron is the seventh recipient of the Paula Vogel Playwriting Award, named in honor of playwright and teacher Paula Vogel, whose plays How I Learned To Drive (Pulitzer Prize for Drama) and The Long Christmas Ride Home premiered at The Vineyard. The residency-based award comes with a cash prize and artistic development support over the 2014 -'15 season.

The Vineyard's Paula Vogel Playwriting Award is made possible through the generosity of The Tournesol Project.

Since 2008, The Vineyard has granted the Paula Vogel Playwriting Award annually to a gifted early-career playwright to write and develop new work while in residence at The Vineyard. The award includes a stipend, work space, dramaturgical support, and collaborative resources over the course the season. Previous recipients of the Paula Vogel Playwriting Award include Tarell Alvin McCraney (The Vineyard's Wig Out!, The Brother/Sister Plays), Rajiv Joseph (The Vineyard's The North Pool, Bengal Tiger At The Baghdad Zoo), Kara Lee Corthron (Julius By Design), Branden Jacobs-Jenkins (An Octoroon, Appropriate), Erika Sheffer (Russian Transport), and Christopher Chen (The Hundred Flowers Project.)

Clare Barron is a playwright and performer from Wenatchee, Washington. Her plays include You Got Older, currently running as a world premiere, directed by Anne Kauffman and produced by Page 73; Baby Screams Miracle (Clubbed Thumb Summerworks); Solar Plexus (Ensemble Studio Theatre's Marathon of One-Act Plays); Dirty Crusty (Youngblood's Unfiltered); and a boy put this girl in a cage with a dog and the dog killed the girl (developed at Colt Coeur, The Bushwick Starr, and The Atlantic Center for the Arts). She is the 2014 Page 73 Playwriting Fellow, an alum of the Soho Rep Writer/Director Lab, a member of Youngblood, and the recipient of a Sloan grant to develop a play about a prehistoric fish. As an actor, Clare recently appeared in the world premiere of Heidi Schreck's The Consultant (Long Wharf) and traveled to Beirut to play Mae in an Arabic-English production of María Irene Fornés' Mud.

When the Paula Vogel Award was established, Ms. Vogel said, "They say a person is judged by the company he or she keeps, and I am so honored by my association with the Vineyard Theatre -- they are a company I always want to keep. I am doubly honored: honored by having the award in my name from The Vineyard, and honored to be blessing a new generation of rising playwrights. The Vineyard fulfills the promise of its name: in planting the seeds of new plays, we as audiences reap the harvest."

Paula Vogel's long and cherished relationship with the Vineyard began with the theatre's acclaimed production of plays How I Learned To Drive, directed by Mark Brokaw; the play won the Pulitzer Prize, Lucille Lortel, Outer Critics Circle and Drama Desk Awards for Best Play. Ms. Vogel's play The Long Christmas Ride Home, also directed by Mark Brokaw, premiered at The Vineyard in 2001. Her other plays include The Baltimore Waltz, The Mineola Twins, The Oldest Profession, Hot N Throbbing and A Civil War Christmas.

Vineyard Theatre is one of the nation's leading non-profit theatre companies, now in its 32nd year. Dedicated to the creation and production of daring new plays and musicals, The Vineyard has consistently premiered provocative, groundbreaking works, including Nicky Silver's The Lyons; Marx, Lopez and Whitty's Tony Award-winning musical Avenue Q; Kander and Ebb's The Scottsboro Boys; Bell and Bowen's [title of show]; Paula Vogel's How I Learned To Drive (1998 Pulitzer Prize); Edward Albee's Three Tall Women (1994 Pulitzer Prize); Gina Gionfriddo's After Ashley, Tarell Alvin McCraney's Wig Out!; Will Eno's Middletown, Jenny Schwartz' God's Ear, and many more. The Vineyard's productions have been honored with two Pulitzer Prizes, three Tony Awards, and numerous Drama Desk, OBIES, Outer Critics Circle and Lucille Lortel Awards.

Currently, the Vineyard is presenting Billy & Ray by Mike Bencivenga, directed by Garry Marshall. Later this season, The Vineyard will present the world premiere of the musical Brooklynite by Peter Lerman and Michael Mayer, based on characters created by Michael Chabon and Ayelet Waldman, with choreography by Steven Hoggett and directed by Michael Mayer; along with the world premiere of 2011 Paula Vogel Award winner Branden Jacob-Jenkins' play Gloria, directed by Evan Cabnet.

Vineyard Theatre's leadership includes Artistic Directors Douglas Aibel and Sarah Stern and Executive Producer Jennifer Garvey-Blackwell.

For more info about the Vineyard Theatre, please visit www.vineyardtheatre.org.