Danny Hoch to Receive 2015 DUTF Playwright Masters Award at Tomorrow's Opening

The Downtown Urban Theater Festival announces that acclaimed playwright/director/actor Danny Hoch will receive the 2015 DUTF Playwright Masters Award at this year's Opening Night event, which will take place tomorrow, May 12th at 8:00 p.m. at 40/40 Club (6 West 25th Street, NYC). For more information on the DUTF Playwright Masters Award; the Opening event; and the 13th Annual Downtown Urban Theater Festival, featuring 17 new works by emerging urban playwrights, visit www.dutfnyc.com.

The DUTF Playwright Masters Award is awarded to a writer that embodies the spirit of the Downtown Urban Theater Festival, founded in 2001 with the purpose of building a fresh repertoire of stories that echo the true spirit of urban life, while speaking to a whole new generation whose lives defy categorizing along conventional lines. Previous honorees of the DUTF Playwright Masters Award include Nilo Cruz (Pulitzer Prize winner for Anna in the Tropics) and Adrienne Kennedy (OBIE Award winner for Funnyhouse of a Negro).

Danny Hoch is an actor, playwright and director whose plays Pot Melting, Some People, and Jails, Hospitals, & Hip-Hop have garnered many awards including 2 OBIES, an NEA Solo Theatre Fellowship, Sundance Writers Fellowship, CalArts/Alpert Award In Theatre and a Tennessee Williams Fellowship. His theatre work has toured to 50 U.S. cities and 15 countries. His credits for film include Bamboozled; Washington Heights; Prison Song; Some People; Subway Stories; The Thin Red Line; Whiteboys; Black Hawk Down; American Splendor; War Of The World;, Lucky You HBO Def Poetry; the film version of Jails, Hospitals & Hip-Hop; We Own The Night; and Henry's Crime. His TV credits include "The Knick," "Nurse Jackie," "Bored To Death," and "Blue Bloods." Danny performed recently as part of the original cast for Ethan Coen and Woody Allen's play Relatively Speaking on Broadway, directed by John Turturro. Mr. Hoch founded the Hip-Hop Theater Festival in 2000 which has since presented over 100 Hip-Hop Generation plays from around the globe and now appears annually in New York, Chicago, DC and San Francisco/Oakland. He directed Will Power's hit show Flow at New York Theatre Workshop, as well as the bilingual Representa at the SFIAF, and his own Till the Break of Dawn at New York's Abrons Arts Center in 2007. He was the 2007 Sundance Theatre Lab's Playwright-In-Residence and was awarded a 2008 Guggenheim Fellowship for Drama. His latest play, Taking Over, which tackled urban gentrification, had sold out runs at The Berkeley Rep, The Kirk Douglas in Los Angeles, and New York City's Public Theater.

Founded in 2001, The Downtown Urban Theater Festival held its inaugural festival in 2002 at HERE in SoHo to help revitalize the NYC downtown arts scene, which was at the time experiencing a severe downturn following the WTC disaster. For the past thirteen years, DUTF has presented 147 plays written by 119 writers from across America's burgeoning multicultural landscape.

Many of DUTF's previous playwrights have gone on to have their work presented in venues across the country, earning awards and other distinctions, including: Dominique Morisseau (DUTF 2006), whose play Detroit '67 was the 2014 Edward M. Kennedy Prize winner for Drama Inspired by American History; Karen Anzoategui, whose play Ser (DUTF 2012) went on to be produced by the Los Angeles Theatre Company and to win two LA Weekly Awards from five nominations in 2014; Helena D. Lewis, who won the 2014 AUDELCO Award for Best Solo Performance for Call Me Crazy (DUTF 2006); Darian Dauchan, whose play Death Boogie (DUTF 2012) won two awards for Best New Music and Best Innovation at the 2012 Edinburgh Fringe Festival in Scotland; Mayda Del Valle (Culture Bandit - DUTF 2002 and 2004), who went on to be take part in the Tony Award winning Russell Simmons Def Poetry Jam on Broadway in 2003, and also to present excerpts of her poetic writings before President Obama and the First Lady at the White House in 2009.

The 13th annual Downtown Urban Theater Festival will take place in New York City from May 13th - 30th, 2015 on the Mainstage at HERE (145 6th Avenue, Enter on Dominick St. - one block south of Spring St. - in NYC). This year, DUTF will present seventeen new stage works by eighteen emerging playwrights from all over the New York City area as well as from around the country. All share stories that interpret our history and our times through live performances fusing theatre, dance, music, media and visual arts. This year's stories express ideas on love, social change, human existence, and survival as we travel from the beautiful city of Paris to the Renaissance of Harlem and the slums of present-day Chicago.

This year, DUTF will proudly launch the New York International Urban Film Fest (NUFF) as part of its programming to provide an outlet for diverse emerging filmmakers to share stories and artistic reform. NUFF's mission is to create a marriage between theater and film by presenting works with strong theatrical elements that focus more on dramatic text and less on visual effects. Desmond Hall, acclaimed filmmaker and former Creative Director for Spike Lee, is the Curator for NUFF. For more information, selected films and screening schedule, visit www.nuffnyc.com.

Visit the Downtown Urban Theater Festival Online at www.dutfnyc.com for the full lineup, tickets and more information.