Edgerton Foundation New Play Awards Reveals First Round Of 2024-25 Recipients

Theatre Communications Group has revealed the round one recipients of the 2024-25 Edgerton Foundation New Play Awards. The awards, totaling $601,000, allow 11 productions extra time for the development and rehearsal of new plays with the entire creative team, hoping to extend the life of the world premiere play after its first run. 

Over the last 18 years, the Edgerton Foundation has awarded $18,551,534 to 545 productions, leading to almost 1,500 subsequent productions at TCG Member Theatres following their world premieres. Forty have made it to Broadway, including: Skeleton Crew, Paradise Square, Curtains, 13, Next to Normal, 33 Variations, In the Next Room (or The Vibrator Play), Time Stands Still, Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo, A Free Man of Color, Good People, Chinglish, Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike, Bronx Bombers, Casa Valentina, Outside Mullingar, All the Way, Eclipsed, Bright Star, Hamilton, The Columnist, In Transit, A Doll's House Part 2, Indecent, Dear Evan Hansen, Oslo, Escape to Margaritaville, The Prom, JUNK: The Golden Age of Debt, SUMMER: The Donna Summer Musical, Head Over Heels, Cost of Living, English (upcoming), and Prayer for the French Republic. Twenty-one plays were nominated for Tony Awards, with All the Way, Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike, Hamilton, Dear Evan Hansen, and Oslo winning the best play or musical awards. Sixteen plays were nominated for the Pulitzer Prize for Drama, with wins for Primary Trust (2024), English (2023), The Hot Wing King (2021), Cost of Living (2018), Hamilton (2016), The Flick (2014), Water by the Spoonful (2012), and Next to Normal (2010).

"With Primary Trust by Eboni Booth receiving the 2024 Pulitzer Prize for Drama, the profound impact of the Edgerton Foundation on the new play sector grows even clearer,” said LaTeshia Ellerson,co-executive director: national engagement, TCG. “That support is also more necessary than ever. As the aftershocks of the pandemic increase the difficulty of producing new work, the support of the Edgerton Foundation grants critical extended rehearsal periods so the artists can fully realize their visions. That leads to not only successful premieres, but to many subsequent productions in theatres nationwide."
 

The 2024-25 Edgerton Foundation New Play Awards were presented to: 
The Janeiad
at Alley Theatre
by Anna Ziegler

Bust
at Alliance Theatre
by Zora Howard

What Became of Us
at Atlantic Theater Company
by Shayan Lotfi

McNeal
at Lincoln Center Theater
by Ayad Akhtar

Vladimir
at Manhattan Theatre Club
by Erika Sheffer

A Tupperware of Ashes
at National Theatre
by Tanika Gupta

The Constituent
at The Old Vic
by Joe Penhall

Liberation
at Roundabout Theatre Company
by Bess Wohl

The Counter
at Roundabout Theatre Company
by Meghan Kennedy

Kyoto
at Royal Shakespeare Company
by Joe Murphy & Joe Robertson
Co-produced with Good Chance

The Staircase
at South Coast Repertory
by Noa Gardner

On behalf of the Royal Shakespeare Company, Co-Artistic Directors Daniel Evans and Tamara Harvey, say “We are incredibly grateful to the Edgerton Foundation for this vital funding, which has enabled us to provide writers Joe Murphy and Joe Robertson, Directors Stephen Daldry and Justin Martin, Good Chance and the wider creative team with the time and space to realize their artistic vision for the production. The rigorous rehearsal process facilitated by the Edgerton Foundation New Play Award has been instrumental in bringing to life the rich tapestry of characters at the heart of the Kyoto protocol negotiations and telling the complex story of how international leaders grappled to reach agreement against all the odds. Kyoto has had a profound impact on all who have seen it so far, and we look forward to sharing it with many more. We are confident that the journey of this exciting new work is just beginning.”

Rob Melrose, artistic director of Alley Theatre, adds, “I want to thank the Edgerton Foundation for its support of our production of The Janeiad by Anna Ziegler. Having this extra week of rehearsal has proved incredibly helpful for the whole team but especially for Miriam Laube who plays ten different roles. It has been such a luxury to have this time months before rehearsals begin to carve out what makes each character different and to start to be able to realize them long before our originally scheduled rehearsals start. Anna Ziegler is an important and prolific American playwright who has had productions at major theaters across the country and in NYC including The Roundabout, Manhattan Theatre Club, The Old Globe, Seattle Rep, Williamstown Theatre Festival, and the Geffen Theatre. While there are many plays that deal with the direct aftermath of the terrorist attacks on 9/11, The Janeiad is a rare look at a widow (Jane) 20 years after the event focusing on how it shaped her life and how she longs to be reunited with her dead husband. The epic nature of 9/11 is fused with the epic of Homer's Odyssey with Penelope coming into Jane's life and helping her to wait 20 years for her husband just as she waited for Odysseus. The play is full of humor, poetry, and longing and is an important contribution to the American Theatre. We are so grateful for Edgerton's support in helping us realize this world premiere.” 

The Edgerton Foundation New Plays Program, directed by Brad and Louise Edgerton, was piloted in 2006 with Center Theatre Group in Los Angeles by offering two musicals in development an extended rehearsal period for the entire creative team, including the playwrights. The Edgertons launched the program nationally in 2007 and have supported 545 plays to date at over 50 different Art Theatres across the country.