Will Arbery Wins 2020 Whiting Award for Drama

Up and coming playwright Will Arbery, who's off-Broadway play Heroes of the Fourth Turning earned acclaim this season, has been announced as the winner of the 2020 Whiting Award for Drama.

The Whiting Awards are distributed annually to emerging writers who show exceptional promise.

Arbery is the author of several plays including Evanston Salt Costs Climbing, Wheelchair Plano. He received critical acclaim for the Clubbed Thumb production of his play, Plano.

He is Playwright's Horizons Tow Foundation Playwright-in-Residence. The Tow Foundation funds projects that offer transformative experiences to individuals and create collaborative ventures in fields where they see opportunities for breakthroughs, reform, and benefits for underserved populations.

Additional 2020 Whiting winners include poets Aria Aber, Diannely Antigua, Jake Skeets and Genya Turovskaya; fiction authors Genevieve Sly Crane, Andrea Lawlor and Ling Ma; and and nonfiction writers Jaquira Díaz and Jia Tolentino. Winners will receive $50,000 each.