Katori Hall Wins 2011 Blackburn Prize

The Susan Smith Blackburn Prize has announced Katori Hall as the winner of its prestigious playwriting award, now celebrating its thirty-third year. The Houston-based Prize received the 2010 Theatre Communications Group's National Funder Award. The annual honor goes to a company, foundation or other entity for "leadership and sustained national support of theater in America."

Hall's play, The Mountaintop, was awarded the Best New Play 2010 Olivier (Britain's top theatre award). Awards include the 2009-10 Lark Play Development Playwrights of New York (PONY) Fellowship, Kate NeAl Kinley Fellowship, two Lecompte du Nouy Prizes from Lincoln Center, Fellowship of Southern Writers Bryan Family Award in Drama, NYFA Fellowship, Van Lier Fellowship from The Public Theatre and the Lorraine Hansberry Playwriting Award. She is a current member of the Lark Playwrights' Workshop, the Dramatist's Guild and the Old Vic New Voices program. She is a graduate of the Julliard School's Lila Acheson Wallace playwriting program.

The ten Finalists for the 2011 Susan Smith Blackburn Prize, chosen from over 100 nominated plays, and their nominating theatres were:

Lisa D'Amour - Detroit , Steppenwolf Theatre Company (U.S.)
Sam Burns - Not the Worst Place, Paines Plough (U.K.)
Frances Ya-Chu Cowhig - Lidless, Marin Theatre Company (U.S.)
Georgia Fitch- Fit and Proper People, The Royal Shakespeare Company (U.K.)
Lisa Kron - In the Wake , Berkeley Repertory Theatre (U.S.)
Tamsin Oglesby - Really Old, Like 45, The Royal National Theatre (U.K.)
Anne Washburn - Mr. Burns: A Post-Electric Play , Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company (U.S)
Joy Wilkinson - The Golden Age, Everyman Playhouse Liverpool (U.K.)
Alexandra Wood - The Andes , Out of Joint (U.K.)

The 2011 Susan Smith Blackburn Prize Winner will be awarded $20,000, and will also receive a signed print by renowned artist Willem De Kooning, created especially for the Prize. Each of the additional Finalists will receive $1,000. A Special Commendation of $5,000 may be given at the discretion of the Judges. A ceremony honoring all Finalists and announcing the Winner will take place in New York City on February 28.

The Susan Smith Blackburn Prize annually honors outstanding new English-language plays by women. For over three decades, the prize has honored and encouraged women playwrights, and raised the visibility of notable new works. Many of the winners have gone on to receive other honors, including Tony Awards and Pulitzer Prizes. The Susan Smith Blackburn Prize generates increased interest and productions at theatre companies across North America and the United Kingdom.

Julia Cho won the 2010 Susan Smith Blackburn Prize for her play The Language Archive, which recently completed a limited engagement at Roundabout Theatre Company in New York. Other recipients of the Prize include Chloe Moss' This Wide Night, Judith Thompson's Palace of the End, Gurpreet Kaur Bhatti's Behzti (Dishonour), Sarah Ruhl's The Clean House, Dael Orlandersmith's Yellowman, Susan Miller's A Map of Doubt and Rescue, Gina Gionfriddo's U.S. Drag, Bridget Carpenter's Fall, Charlotte Jones' Humble Boy, Naomi Wallace's One Flea Spare, Jessica Goldberg's Refuge, Paula Vogel's How I Learned to Drive, Moira Buffini's Silence and Caryl Churchill's Serious Money.

The international panel of six judges for the 33rd annual Susan Smith Blackburn Prize includes three from the U.K. and three from the U.S.: Jim Simpson, founder and artistic director of the Flea Theatre in NYC; Tony Award-winning American stage and film actress and director Judith Ivey; Obie-award winning director Anne Kauffman; celebratEd English actress Helen McCrory, noted British critic and author Georgina Brown, and Stephen Unwin, Artistic Director of Britain's The Rose Theatre.

The Susan Smith Blackburn Prize reflects the values and interests of Susan Smith Blackburn, noted American actress and writer who lived in London during the last 15 years of her life. She died in 1977 at the age of 42. Over 300 plays have been chosen as finalists since the prize was founded in 1977. Over 60 of them are frequently produced in the United States today. Seven Blackburn finalist plays have gone on to win the Pulitzer Prize in Drama. The authors of those plays, Margaret Edson, Beth Henley, Marsha Norman, Lynn Nottage, Suzan-Lori Parks, Paula Vogel and Wendy Wasserstein are the only women to have won the Pulitzer since the Blackburn Prize was first established.

Judges of The Susan Smith Blackburn Prize over the past thirty three years are a Who's Who of the English-speaking theatre and include, Eileen Atkins, Blair Brown, Zoe Caldwell, Jill Clayburgh, Glenn Close, Harold Clurman, Colleen Dewhurst, Edie Falco, Ralph Fiennes, John Guare, A.R. Gurney, David Hare, Doug Hughes Tony Kushner, John Lahr, Todd London, Janet McTeer, Marsha Norman, Joan Plowright, Marian Seldes, Fiona Shaw, Tom Stoppard, Meryl Streep, Jessica Tandy, Paula Vogel, Wendy Wasserstein, Sigourney Weaver, August Wilson and JoAnne Woodward among nearly 200 artists in the United States, England and Ireland.

Each year artistic directors and prominent professionals in the theatre throughout the English-speaking world are invited to nominate plays. Plays are eligible whether or not they have been produced, but any premiere production must have occurred within the preceding year. Each script receives multiple readings by members of an international reading committee that then selects ten finalists. All six judges read each Finalist's play.