Honor Roll! Is Accepting Submissions For The Third Annual Marjorie Bicknell Honor Roll! Honors

Honor Roll! is an advocacy and action group of women+ playwrights over forty - and our women+ over 40 allies - whose goal is our inclusion in theater. We are the generation excluded at the outset of our careers because of sexism, now overlooked because of ageism. We celebrate diversity in theater and work to eliminate age discrimination as it intersects with sexism and other biases including those based on race, gender identity, ethnicity, faith, socioeconomic status, disability, and sexual orientation in the American Theater and beyond.

Honor Roll! Honors recognizes those theater professionals who work to ensure that the plays of women playwrights over 40 have a full and significant life on the American stage are represented fairly in the canon of theatrical works.

Honor Roll! will award Honors in five categories in 2024 for work accomplished between January 1, and December 31, 2023. This year's categories are:

Outstanding Producer

Recognizing a producer or artistic director who makes a special effort to include the work of women+ playwrights age 40 or older in their theater's season, or who has produced a Second Stage season of plays or readings by them.

Inclusionary Festival

Recognizing a conference, festival, or special event that features the work of women+ playwrights age 40 and older, or who makes a special effort to include their work in a festival or series of plays and readings.

Outstanding Publisher

Recognizing a publisher who produces anthologies of work by women+ playwrights age 40+, a magazine that features the work of these playwrights or regularly includes articles about the work that women+ playwrights in this age cohort are doing.

Individual Achievement

Recognizing an individual who does outstanding work in helping women+ playwrights age 40+ to get their work produced, published, or honored in a special way.

Legacy Award

Recognizing an individual or organization that has consistently advocated for women+ playwrights, especially those age 40 and older, over a period of five years or longer.

Honor Roll! members—or any theater professional—may nominate an individual or group of individuals for Honor Roll! Honors, but individuals may not nominate themselves.

To nominate you must provide the following:

• Name and contact information of the Nominee
• Name and contact information of the Nominator
• 150 to 200 words on Nominee's efforts and what makes them worthy of the award. Please include links to their work or information about them and their work.
• Published evidence of the effort, such as playbills, press releases, news articles, etc.

Nominations will be accepted between June 1 and July 15, 2024. You can access the nomination form at bit.ly/4bI1ho6. Or email your nomination with the requested information to HonorRollPlaywrights@gmail.com. Winners will be announced on August 1, 2024.

Marjorie Bicknell, who had been a Regional Rep for Dramatists Guild, initiated and developed the Honor Roll! Honors program. It was a project she was wildly passionate about and completely devoted to during the first two years of its existence.  She handled every aspect of the program from designing the specific look of the logo, placing the call for and tallying the nominations, framing the awards and mailing them, and sending out press releases. Marjorie passed away in October, but the program will continue with her name now added to the Honors in her memory. 

Honor Roll! member Ann Timmons will take over some of Marjorie's duties, with help from Olga Humphrey, Executive Committee liaison.