Cris Eli Blak Wins 2024 Charles M. Getchell New Play Award

Cris Eli Blak has been named as the winner of the 2024 Charles M. Getchell New Play Award for his play Between Dog and Wolf from the Southeastern Theatre Conference, taking place this year in Mobile, Alabama. Between Dog and Wolf is described by Lauren Brooke Ellis, SETC Chair of Playwriting, as a "deeply compelling, deeply human, and deeply fascinating play about the aftermath of trauma and what it does to those closest to us." The show focuses on the reunion of three high school friends at a hotel on the night before their ten year reunion, which also marks ten years since they all survived a school shooting.

The show specifically aims to highlight the intersectionality of being both a survivor of a tragedy and a person of color and how students of color are usually not the voices broadly publicized or televised. A reading of the show, followed by a response session, directed by new Getchell New Play Award Chair, Dr. David Beach, will take place on Thursday, March 14 at 7:00PM.

The SETC New Play Contest is dedicated to the discovery, development and publicizing of worthy new plays and playwrights. The Charles M. Getchell Award offers $1,000 and a Staged Play Reading at the annual SETC convention. Cris Eli Blak is an emerging proud Black playwright whose work has been performed around the world. He is the inaugural winner of the Black Broadway Men Playwriting Initiative, the Atlanta Shakespeare Company's inaugural winner of the Muse of Fire BIPOC Playwriting Festival, and the Emerging Playwrights Fellowship from The Scoundrel & Scamp Theatre. He is currently an artist-in-residence with Abingdon Theatre Company and has previously been in residence with The State University of New York - Oswego, Fosters Theatrical Artists Residency, Paterson Performing Arts Development Council and La Lengua Teatro en Español/AlterTheater Ensemble; the recipient of the Michael Bradford Residency from Quick Silver Theatre Company; and was in the inaugural class of fellows for the Black Theatre Coalition. had his work published by Smith & Kraus, Inc.,YOUTHPlays, Applause Books, New World Theatre, Breath of Fire Latina Theater Ensemble, and in the Black Theatre Review.