Norris, McCraney and David Adjmi Nab Steinberg Playwright Awards, Ceremony Held 10/26

Playwrights Bruce Norris, Tarell Alvin McCraney and David Adjmi are the first recipients of the ‘Steinberg Playwright Awards,' it was officially announced by playwright Tony Kushner at a press conference today in New York City. The awards were established in 2008 by The Harold and Mimi Steinberg Charitable Trust to recognize up-and-coming playwrights at various stages of their early careers whose professional works show great promise. They will be presented at a ceremony on October 26th, at Lincoln Center's Vivian Beaumont Theatre.

Last year, The Harold and Mimi Steinberg Charitable Trust presented Tony Kushner with the very first ‘Steinberg Distinguished Playwright Award,' which carried a cash prize of $200,000, making it the largest award ever created to encourage artistic achievement in the American theater. As previously announced, the ‘Steinberg Distinguished Playwright Award' (for established playwrights) and the ‘Steinberg Playwright Awards' (for playwrights in earlier stages of their careers), both known as ‘The Mimi,' will be presented in alternating years. This year's Steinberg Playwright Awards carry cash prizes totaling $100,000.

The Steinberg Playwright Awards were established to honor the accomplishments of some of the most gifted up-and-coming American playwrights, and recognize the promise they hold for the future of American theater.

In their selection process this year, the Advisory Committee voted to award playwrights at various stages of their early careers, none of whom have yet achieved the national recognition and success of a mid-career playwright. The Advisory Committee and the Steinberg Trust has decided to honor Mr. Norris for his body of work and outstanding potential (for which he will receive a $50,000 cash award), and Messrs. Adjmi and McCraney for being promising new voices in the theater (for which they will each receive a cash award of $25,000). The playwrights will also be presented with ‘The Mimi,' a statue designed by Tony Award-nominated scenic designer and architect David Rockwell.

On behalf of The Steinberg Trust, Board member James D. Steinberg, said, "The Trust is pleased and proud to be able to honor and encourage these three important playwrights. Their unique voices and exceptional talent hold limitless potential. We welcome, celebrate and look forward with great anticipation to their artistic contributions to the American theater for decades to come."

The recipients were selected by the Advisory Committee of prominent theater professionals that determined the criteria for the award, nominated the playwrights and selected the recipients. The current members of this Committee are: André Bishop, Artistic Director, Lincoln Center Theater; Polly K. Carl, Director of Artistic Development, Steppenwolf Theatre Company (formerly Producing Artistic Director, The Playwrights' Center); David Emmes, Producing Artistic Director, South Coast Repertory; Oskar Eustis, Artistic Director, The Public Theater; Martha Lavey, Artistic Director, Steppenwolf Theatre Company; playwright Eduardo Machado, Artistic Director, INTAR Theatre; and Marc Masterson, Artistic Director, Actors Theatre of Louisville.

On behalf of the Advisory Committee, Oskar Eustis said, "The committee felt strongly we should not limit this award only to writers at the very start of their careers, but should honor writers of real power and integrity who are in their first decade of professional playwriting. These three writers are each unique, extraordinary voices who we are confident will make a real mark on the American theater."

With the recent creation of these two unprecedented theater awards for American playwrights in different stages of their careers, The Harold and Mimi Steinberg Charitable Trust is continuing its tradition of honoring artistic excellence in the American theater by supporting the growth and development of outstanding playwrights. The goal in establishing these awards is to recognize these theater professionals and encourage them to remain in their chosen field.

The members of the Board of Directors of The Harold and Mimi Steinberg Charitable Trust are Carole A. Krumland, James D. Steinberg, Michael A. Steinberg, Seth M. Weingarten and William D. Zabel.

The Harold and Mimi Steinberg Charitable Trust was created by Harold Steinberg in 1986 in the names of himself and his late wife Miriam. The Trust's primary mission is to support and promote the American theater as a vital part of our culture by nurturing American playwrights, encouraging the development and production of new American plays, and providing significant support to theater companies across the country.

Since its inception, the Trust has given in excess of $40 million to more than one hundred not-for-profit theater organizations. These gifts have funded countless productions, as well as the commissioning of playwrights, playwriting programs and arts-in-education outreach programs for tens of thousands of children in an effort to create and educate new generations of theatergoers.

The Trust has also been instrumental in providing emergency assistance to numerous theater companies that have faced severe financial circumstances (including possible dissolution) because of cutbacks in traditional sources of funding or other factors, including the devastating impact of the events of September 11, 2001 on cultural institutions in New York City.

The Trust has also collaborated with the American Theatre Critics Association to create and fund the Steinberg/ATCA New Play Award. The award is presented annually during the Humana Festival of New American Plays at Actors Theatre of Louisville. Recent winners of this award include Craig Lucas, Lynn Nottage, Lee Blessing and Nilo Cruz.

David Adjmi was awarded both the Kesselring and the Bush Artists Fellowships for 2009. A collection of his work entitled Stunning and Other Plays is forthcoming from TCG in 2010. His play The Evildoers was developed at MCC, the Royal Court (UK), and Sundance; it premiered at Yale Repertory Theatre (Hartford Courant and New Haven Advocate ‘Top 10 of 2008'). Stunning was developed at New York Theatre Workshop and MTC; it was published in the September issue of American Theatre. The play premiered at Woolly Mammoth Theatre, where it was nominated for five Helen Hayes Awards including the Charles MacArthur Award for Outstanding New Play. Stunning was produced at Lincoln Center Theatre's LCT3 in July 2009. Other plays include Elective Affinities (Royal Shakespeare Company, dir. Dominic Cooke), Marie Antoinette (Sundance Residency at the Public/NYSF, Goodman Theatre New Stages Series, JAW/West Fest at Portland Center Stage, Soho Rep W/D Lab), Caligula (Soho Rep Studio Series), Strange Attractors (Empty Space, dir. Chay Yew), Woody Allen's Fall Project and 3C. Mr. Adjmi has received numerous awards and honors, including commissions from Lincoln Center, the Royal Court, Yale Rep and Berkeley Rep, the Helen Merrill Emerging Playwrights Award, a McKnight Advancement Grant, the Marian Seldes-Garson Kanin Award, a Jerome Fellowship, a Royal Court International Residency, Jon Robin Baitz's Ovid Grant for New Writing, a NYTW/Dartmouth Residency, the Lecomte du Nouy Award, the Cherry Lane Mentor Project Fellowship (w. Craig Lucas), an Atlantic Center for the Arts residency (w. Paula Vogel), a Minnesota State Arts Board grant, and multiple fellowships from The MacDowell Colony. He served as a panelist for both the National Endowment for the Arts and the McKnight Foundation. Mr. Adjmi is a member of New Dramatists, the Dramatists Guild, Soho Theatre's HUB (U.K.), MCC Playwrights Coalition, Rising Phoenix Rep and Vinegar Tom Players. He attended Sarah Lawrence College, the Iowa Playwrights Workshop and the American Playwrights Program at the Juilliard School.

Tarell Alvin McCraney's plays include Wig Out! (developed at Sundance Theatre Lab, produced in New York by the Vineyard Theatre and in London by the Royal Court) and the trilogy entitled The Brother/Sister Plays, including: The Brothers Size (simultaneously premiered in New York at the Public Theater, in association with the Foundry Theatre, and in London at the Young Vic, where it was nominated for an Olivier Award for Outstanding Achievement at an Affiliated Theatre); In the Red and Brown Water (winner of the Kendeda Graduate Playwriting Competition, produced at the Alliance Theatre and the Young Vic); and Marcus, or the Secret of Sweet. All three will open this May 22nd at the McCarter Theater in Princeton in a co-production with the Public Theater New York. Mr. McCraney's other plays include: Without/Sin and Run, Mourner, Run (adapted from Randall Kenan's short story), both of which premiered at Yale Cabaret. Choir Boy commissioned by Manhattan Theater Club, Again and Again; A meditation on Antigone for Berkeley Rep and The Breach, commissioned by Southern Rep in New Orleans, where it premiered in August 2007 to mark the two-year anniversary of the tragedy in New Orleans. The Breach also played at Seattle Rep in the winter of 2007. Mr. McCraney attended the New World School of the Arts High School in Miami, Florida, receiving the exemplary artist award and the Dean's Award in Theatre. He holds a BFA in acting from DePaul University. Mr. McCraney is a May 2007 graduate of the Yale School of Drama's playwriting program, headed by Richard Nelson, where he received the Cole Porter Playwriting Award upon graduation. He is the Royal Shakespeare Company's international writer in residence, the 2009 Hodder Fellow at Princeton University, and the recipient of the 2007 Paula Vogel Playwriting Award and the 2007 Whiting Writing Award. Mr. McCraney is currently a member of New Dramatists and Teo Castellanos/D-Projects in Miami. In 2008, he was the recipient of London's Evening Standard Award for Most Promising Playwright and his play Wig Out! received a GLAAD Award 2009 for Outstanding Play on and Off-Broadway in New York. Last May, he received the inaugural New York Times Outstanding Playwright Award 2009.

Bruce Norris is a writer and an actor whose plays include The Infidel (2000), Purple Heart (2002), We All Went Down to Amsterdam (2003), The Pain and the Itch (2004), and The Unmentionables (2006) all of which had their premiere at Steppenwolf Theatre, Chicago. His play Clybourne Park will have its world premiere this season at Playwrights Horizons, NY, and his newest play, titled A Parallelogram will premiere at Steppenwolf in July 2010. His work has also been produced at Lookingglass Theatre (Chicago), Philadelphia Theatre Company, Woolly Mammoth Theatre (Washington D.C.), The Royal Court Theatre (London) and The Galway Festival (Galway, Ireland). Mr. Norris is the recipient of the Whiting Foundation Prize for Drama (2006) as well as two Joseph Jefferson Awards (Chicago) for Best New Work, and the Kesselring Prize, Honorable Mention, 2006. As an actor, he can be seen in the films A Civil Action and The Sixth Sense, and the upcoming All Good Things. He lives in Brooklyn, New York.

André Bishop, Artistic Director of Lincoln Center Theater since January 1992, has developed and produced new plays and musicals by many of America's leading playwrights, composers, and lyricists. Before arriving at Lincoln Center, Mr. Bishop served as Playwrights Horizons' Artistic Director for ten years and as its Literary Manager for six.

Polly Carl is one of the nation's foremost experts in the field of new play development. In September 2009, Dr. Carl joined the Steppenwolf Theatre Company in a newly created position, Director of Artistic Development. As Director of Artistic Development, Dr. Carl oversees Steppenwolf's new play development and leads the artistic initiatives facilitated through grants from the Duke and Mellon Foundations. For the last 11 years Dr. Carl has served as strategic and artistic head at the Playwrights' Center - the last seven as Artistic Director. At the Playwrights' Center, Dr. Carl programmed the prestigious Ruth Easton Lab, a year-round laboratory that supports the development of more than fifty new plays by emerging and advanced playwrights from around the country. Dr. Carl also served as the Lab's lead dramaturge. Dr. Carl has been a tireless advocate for playwrights and new plays traveling around the world, including numerous trips to Japan to build an international exchange program with the Tokyo International Festival. Dr. Carl strongly believes that theater belongs on the stage and that living playwrights are the present and the future of the art form. Dr. Carl has sat on numerous boards, panels and committees including the Steinberg Advisory Committee to select their distinguished playwright award - the Mimi, the NEA Theater panel, the MAP Fund panel, and the board of Ten Thousand Things Theatre. Dr. Carl has a Ph.D. in Comparative Studies in Discourse and Society with an emphasis on Performance Theory from the University of Minnesota.

David Emmes is the Producing Artistic Director of South Coast Repertory, one of the country's leading resident theaters and the recipient of many honors and awards, including the Tony® Award in recognition of its outstanding contributions to the American theatre. Renowned for its development of new plays, SCR's Pacific Playwrights Festival has introduced over 275 new works to the American stage. Mr. Emmes has received numerous awards for his direction of SCR productions during his career, including the world premieres of Amy Freed's Safe in Hell, The Beard of Avon, and Freedomland, Thomas Babe's Great Day in the Morning, Keith Reddin's Rum and Coke and But Not For Me, Neal Bell's Cold Sweat, the American premieres of Terry Johnson's Unsuitable for Adults and Joe Penhall's Dumb Show, the West Coast premieres of Jeffrey Hatcher's Three Viewings, David Hare's The Secret Rapture and Richard Nelson's New England, and the Southland premiere of Caryl Churchill's Top Girls at SCR and the Westwood Playhouse. Mr. Emmes received his BA and MA from San Francisco State University, and his PhD from USC. Along with his colleague, Martin Benson, Mr. Emmes is the recipient of the 2007-2008 Margo Jones Medal for lifetime commitment to the living theatre.

Oskar Eustis is the Artistic Director of The Public Theater and has worked as a director, dramaturg, and artistic director for theaters around the country. From 1981 through 1986 he was resident director and dramaturg at the Eureka Theatre Company in San Francisco, and Artistic Director until 1989, when he moved to the L.A.'s Mark Taper Forum as Associate Artistic Director until 1994. Mr. Eustis then served as Artistic Director at Trinity Repertory Company in Providence, Rhode Island for eleven years. In 2005 he took the helm at New York's Public Theater. Throughout his career, Mr. Eustis has been dedicated to the development of new plays as both a director and a producer. He was a professor of Theatre, Speech and Dance at Brown University, where he founded and chaired the Trinity Rep/Brown University Consortium for professional theater training. He received an honorary doctorate from Brown in 2001 and currently serves as Professor of Dramatic Writing and Arts and Public Policy at New York University.

Martha Lavey is an ensemble member and the Artistic Director of Steppenwolf Theatre and has appeared at Steppenwolf in Love-Lies-Bleeding, Lost Land, I Never Sang for My Father, The House of Lily, Valparaiso, The Memory of Water, The Designated Mourner, Supple in Combat, Time of My Life, A Clockwork Orange, Talking Heads, SLAVS!, Picasso at the Lapin Agile, Ghost in the Machine, A Summer Remembered, Love Letters, Aunt Dan and Lemon and Savages. Elsewhere in Chicago she has performed at the Goodman, Victory Gardens, Northlight and Remains theaters, and in New York at the Women's Project and Productions. Ms. Lavey has served on grants panels for the National Endowment for the Arts, the Theatre Communications Group (TCG) and the City Arts panel of Chicago. Ms. Lavey holds a doctorate in Performance Studies from Northwestern University and is a member of the National Advisory Council for the School of Communication at Northwestern and a board member of TCG. She is a recipient of the Sarah Siddons Award and an Alumni Merit Award from Northwestern University.

Eduardo Machado is the author of over forty plays including The Cook, Havana is Waiting, The Floating Island Plays, Once Removed, and Stevie Wants to Play the Blues. His plays have been produced at Seattle Repertory Theatre, the Goodman Theatre, Hartford Stage, Actors Theatre of Louisville, the Mark Taper Forum, Long Wharf Theatre, Hampstead Theatre in London, American Place Theatre, The Cherry Lane Theatre, and Repertorio Español, among many others. Mr. Machado has served as an Artistic Associate at The Public, the Flea Theatre/Bat Theatre Company and The Cherry Lane Alternative, and he was playwright in residence at The Mark Taper Forum. He has received four National Endowment for the Arts grants, two Rockefeller Foundation Playwriting grants, and grants from The TCG Pew Charitable Trust and The Berrilla Kerr Foundation. Mr. Machado's plays have been published by the Theatre Communications Group and Samuel French. He is currently INTAR Theatre's Artistic Director, and began teaching at NYU in fall 2007. "Tastes Like Cuba: An Exile's Hunger for Home," a food memoir by Eduardo Machado and Michael Domitrovich, was recently released by Gotham Press.

Marc Masterson, in his eighth season of leadership at Actors Theatre of Louisville, is an award-winning director specializing in new work and innovative productions of the classics. Actors directing credits include The Tempest, The Unseen, Mary's Wedding, Natural Selection, The Crucible, The Shaker Chair, Betrayal, After Ashley, Tallgrass Gothic, The Importance of Being Earnest, The Second Death of Priscilla, Limonade Tous les Jours, Wonderful World, and his acclaimed three-actor production of Macbeth. As a producer, Mr. Masterson has brought new artists to Louisville audiences, including playwrights August Wilson, Craig Wright, Theresa Rebeck and dozens of Humana Festival playwrights. He led the creation of Actors Theatre's first Education department and numerous community outreach efforts. Mr. Masterson earned his M.F.A. from the University of Pittsburgh and a B.F.A. from Carnegie Mellon University. Mr. Masterson subsequently taught at both universities. Mr. Masterson currently serves on the Executive Committee of Theatre Communications Group. He served as Producing Director of City Theatre in Pittsburgh for 20 years.