Jeremy O. Harris Announced as Next Presiding Playwright for 2023 Yale Drama Series Prize

The 2023 Yale Drama Series Prize has chosen Jeremy O. Harris, the Yale alum and Tony-nominated author of Slave Play, as the presiding playwright for its landmark 15th anniversary year. As his first order of business, Harris is assembling an international group of readers to help evaluate submissions as part of a larger effort to infuse the process with a more global point-of-view.

Francine Horn, President of the David Charles Horn Foundation, said, "I am so delighted that Jeremy O. Harris - one of the great iconoclasts of our time - now joins the ranks of the many distinguished playwrights who have served in this role before him, including Edward Albee, David Hare, John Guare, Marsha Norman, Nicholas Wright, Ayad Akhtar and, most recently, Paula Vogel. Jeremy has already pushed the theatrical artform forward with his own work, and now his singular vision will have a hand in shaping what's to come."

Now celebrating its fifteenth year of awarding an emerging playwright, the Yale Drama Series Prize is the preeminent playwriting award in cooperation with Yale University Press and is solely sponsored by the David Charles Horn Foundation. The Yale Drama Series Prize is awarded annually for a play by an emerging playwright, selected by a judging panel of one-a distinguished playwright of our time. The winner receives the David Charles Horn Prize of $10,000, as well as publication of the winning play by Yale University Press and a staged reading. The Yale Drama Series is an annual international open submission competition for emerging playwrights who are invited to submit original, unpublished, full-length, English language plays for consideration. All entries are read blindly.

"If only the entire theater world was as democratic, meritocratic, and pluralistic as the Yale Drama Prize," said Mr. Harris. "There is an entire generation of playwrights who have been fighting to be heard - especially in light of the pause button pushed by the pandemic, and this is our opportunity to thrust a chosen few directly into the global cultural conversation. These are the next artists who will change the way we think and, when given the chance, move the world into a new era. I can't wait to start devouring their work."

Jeremy O. Harris earned his MFA in 2019 from the Yale Playwrighting Program, where he wrote the Tony Award-nominated Slave Play. Slave Play was originally produced at Yale in October of 2017, ahead of its Broadway runs at the August Wilson Theatre from October 2019 to January 2020 and from November 2021 to January 2022. His new play, Daddy, just opened at London's Almeida Theatre to rapturous reviews.

ABOUT Jeremy O. Harris

Jeremy O. Harris is the playwright and creator of the most Tony-nominated Broadway play ever, Slave Play (Golden Theatre - Broadway, New York Theatre Workshop, NYT Critics Pick, Winner of the 2018 Kennedy Center Rosa Parks Playwriting Award, the Lorraine Hansberry Playwriting Award, and The Lotos Foundation Prize in the Arts and Sciences). His play "DADDY" opened to great acclaim at the Almeida Theatre in London in March 2022, marking the UK debut of the play. For film, Jeremy co-wrote A24's critically-acclaimed indie feature Zola alongside director Janicza Bravo, which won two 2022 Independent Spirit Awards. Jeremy has an overall deal with HBO, and his television credits include their hit series Euphoria and upcoming TV adaptation of Irma Vep. He is also currently co-creating and will co-showrun an adaptation of Brit Bennett's best-selling novel, The Vanishing Half, with Aziza Barnes at HBO. As an actor, Jeremy recently appeared on HBO Max's Gossip Girl reimagining and in season two of Netflix's Emily in Paris. He was named "The Queer Black Savior the Theatre World Needs" by Out Magazine, is a Human Rights Campaign's 2020 honoree, was included on both THR's 50 Most Powerful LGBTQ Players in Hollywood and TIME Magazine's 2019 100 NEXT lists. As a playwright, he is the 11th recipient of the Vineyard Theatre's Paula Vogel Playwrighting Award, a 2016 MacDowell Colony Fellow, an Orchard Project Greenhouse artist, a resident playwright with Colt Coeur, and is under commission from Lincoln Center Theater and The Public Theater. His full-length plays also include: Xander Xyst, Dragon: 1; and WATER SPORTS; or insignificant white boys. His work has been presented or developed by Pieter Performance Space, JACK, Ars Nova, The New Group, New York Theatre Workshop, and Performance Space New York. He is a graduate of the Yale MFA Playwriting Program.

ABOUT THE YALE DRAMA SERIES PRIZE

Previous winners of the Yale Drama Series Prize include John Austin Connolly's The Boys From Siam (selected by Edward Albee in 2007), Neil Wechsler's Grenadine (selected by Edward Albee in 2008), Frances Ya-Chu Cowhig's Lidless (selected by David Hare in 2009), Virginia Grise's blu (selected by David Hare in 2010), Shannon Murdoch's New Light Shine (selected by John Guare in 2011), Clarence Coo's Beautiful Province (selected by John Guare in 2012), Jen Silverman's Still (selected by Marsha Norman in 2013), Janine Nabers's Serial Black Face (selected by Marsha Norman in 2014), Barbara Seyda's Celia, a Slave: 26 Characters Testify (selected by Nicholas Wright in 2015), Emily Schwend's Utility (selected by Nicholas Wright in 2016), Jacqueline Goldfinger's Bottle Fly (selected by Nicholas Wright in 2017), Leah Nanako Winkler's God Said This (selected by Ayad Akhtar in 2018), Liliana Padilla's How to Defend Yourself (selected by Ayad Akhtar in 2019), Rachel Lynett's Apologies to Lorraine Hansberry (You Too August Wilson) (selected by Paula Vogel in 2021), and Seayoung Yim's Jar of Fat (selected by a panel of six judges in 2022).

ABOUT THE DAVID Charles Horn FOUNDATION

The David Charles Horn Foundation was established in 2003 by Francine Horn, David's wife and partner in the international fashion publication service Here & There. David was a man of vision and discipline with an overriding dedication to the written word. His dream of having his own writing published was never realized. The Foundation seeks to honor David's aspirations by offering other writers the opportunity of publication. More particularly, the Foundation supports emerging playwrights, perhaps in greater need of assistance today than beginning writers in any other of the literary arts. The Foundation provides all funding for the Yale Drama Series.