NYCWAM Announces Winners of Collaboration Award

The New York Coalition of Professional Women in the Arts & Media, Inc. (NYCWAM) is proud to announce the winners of its internationally recognized Collaboration Award. The award honors successful collaborations among women from different specializations in the arts and media. The winners are playwright, Stefanie Zadravec (Dramatists Guild), and director, Daniella Topol (Stage Directors and Choreographers), for their collaboration on The Electric Baby. The award will be presented at a gala at the Gershwin Hotel (7 East 27th Street) on Monday, March 21st.

The Electric Baby was chosen from a pool of over one hundred artists from across the nation and internationally to receive the $1000 award. Topol and Zadravec began their collaboration in May 2010 and further developed it at Theater of the First Amendment in Washington, D.C. They will continue to work together on a staged reading at The Playwrights Realm's INK'd series set for June 13th. The Electric Baby is a current semi-finalist for the Eugene O'Neill Center's National Playwrights conference, a finalist for Play Penn's New Play Development Conference in Philadelphia, and is slated for a full production in 2012 at the Quantum Theater in Pittsburgh.

NYCWAM has designated two additional projects as "Honored Finalists," which will receive a $100 award: Slashes of Light, collaborators Judy Tate and Melissa Maxwell, and Thirst, collaborators Anita Chandwaney and MEH Lewis. Projects which have earned "Honorable Mention" are: Appetite, collaborators Arden Kass and Lorca Peress; Communicate Sober, collaborators Jan Buttram and Bara Swain; Seven, collaborators Anna Deavere Smith, Carol Mack, Catherine Filoux, Gail Kriegel, Paula Cizmar, Ruth Margraff and Susan Yankowitz; Orange Chicken, a screenplay from collaborators Nina Braddock and Katy Frame; and Sila, collaborators Chantal Bilodeau and Seema Sueko.

Monetary prizes have been made possible by donations from Sherry Eaker, The Rehearsal Club, Gale Patron, and Yvonne Curry. Additional information and event tickets for the gala are available at the Coalition's website at www.nycwam.org.

The New York Coalition of Professional Women in the Arts & Media, Inc., is an organization created to aid women in the arts and media industries by focusing the power of our member organizations and using that combined strength to address issues of concern. Member organizations include Stage Directors and Choreographers (SDC), Actors Equity Association (AEA), Screen Actors Guild (SAG), Dramatists Guild (DG), Writer's Guild of America (WGA), American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (AFTRA), NY Women in Film and Television (NYWIFT), League of Professional Theatre Women (LPTW).

Associate members include WomenArts, Women Make Movies (WMM), Women's Media Center (WMC), Dancers Over 40, and The Rehearsal Club.