Karissa Murrell Myers' BLACK BEAR ISLAND Recieves 2023 Mazumdar New Play Award
The award comes with a cash prize, as well as a full production in Alleyway's 24/25 season.
By: Blair Ingenthron Jul. 21, 2024
Buffalo's Alleyway Theatre has announced the recipient of the 2023 Maxim Mazumdar New Play Award. Playwright Karissa Murrell Myers will receive the annual award for her play, BLACK BEAR ISLAND. The award comes with a cash prize, as well as a full production in Alleyway's 24/25 season.
“The Mazumdar Award represents brand new plays by both established and emerging writers at the top of their game,” explains Artistic Director Chris J Handley. “For thirty-four years, the Mazumdar has honored plays highly theatrical in style, contemporary in conversation, and ambitious in scope. Alleyway's work is to develop and celebrate tomorrow's American theatre today, and Karissa's piece absolutely embodies that.”
The Mazumdar Award has been presented each year since 1989 in memory of Canadian actor/playwright Maxim Mazumdar, whose many contributions to the early growth of Alleyway Theatre were artistically invaluable. In 2020, the entry fee was eliminated, opening access to the yearly competition as part of the company's latest strategic plan. This resulted in a surge of entries, totaling 953 this season.
Over the last year, a volunteer group of 80 theatre artists both local to Western New York and from across the country assembled with the task of reading and scoring these fully original scripts for the stage. In two rounds, the team narrowed the plays to 22 semi-finalists, from which the artistic team selected three runners-up and one ultimate recipient. The world premiere of BLACK BEAR ISLAND will be directed by Daniel F. Lendzian and will play the Alleyway mainstage beginning in February 2025.
Recent awardees include T. Adamson's THE NATURAL HORSE (2022), Deborah Yarchun's THE ALEPH COMPLEX (2020) and Bruce Walsh's BERSERKER (2019). Because of the Covid shutdown, no award was presented in 2021.
BLACK BEAR ISLAND is a 2024 O'Neill National Playwrights Conference finalist and semi-finalist at the Blue Ink Awards.
“Receiving the Mazumdar Award for my play BLACK BEAR ISLAND is a great honor,” explains Myers. “I'm grateful for this opportunity to bring this piece to Buffalo and work with Alleyway Theatre. To be a part of their 40+ year legacy is deeply humbling; I find it inspiring how they passionately champion new voices and new work with a focus on collaboration and authenticity, especially because this is in direct alignment with my own personal artistic ethos.”
ABOUT THE PLAY
Following the mysterious death of her estranged childhood sweetheart, Amitra returns home for the first time in sixteen years and is plunged into a nightmare of secrets and lies. In this gripping psychological thriller, the ancient Pacific Northwest Forest engulfs the house and long-buried memories surface, forcing Amitra to confront the ghosts of her past in order to survive the present. With its masterful blend of mystery, suspense, and raw emotion, BLACK BEAR ISLAND explores the haunting power of guilt and the dangerous allure of nostalgia where reality blurs and the past refuses to stay buried.
ABOUT THE PLAYWRIGHT
Karissa Murrell Myers is a Filipino-American theatre artist based in Chicago, where she works as a playwright, actor, producer, and casting director. She serves as the Artistic Director and Co-Founder of Bramble Theatre Company. An O'Neill finalist, her plays include ON THE GREENBELT, BLACK BEAR ISLAND, BLOOD OF MY MOTHER'S, THE RED FORTUNE COOKIE, HOW TO MURDER…, FRAGMENTED, and HOW DO WE NAVIGATE SPACE? Her work has been developed and/or produced at Goodman Theatre, Strawdog Theatre, Renaissance Theaterworks, A Red Orchid Theatre, Rivendell Theatre Ensemble, The Gift Theatre, American Blues Theatre, Silk Road, Oregon Contemporary Theatre, City Theatre, Boise Contemporary Theatre, Avalanche Theatre, Broken Nose Theatre, Best of Playground-Chicago, Our Perspective: Asian American Plays, and Bramble. BLACK BEAR ISLAND was a Finalist for the O'Neill National Playwrights Conference. Karissa received an "Outstanding New Work" Jeff Awards nomination for the world premiere of ON THE GREENBELT, and is a three-time Semi-Finalist for the Blue Ink Awards. Her stage acting credits include working at Court Theatre, Remy Bumppo, Goodman Theatre, The House Theatre of Chicago, and Renaissance Theaterworks. Television work: Chicago Med, Chicago PD, The Big Leap, Exorcist, and Electric Dreams. She is the resident Casting Director for Strawdog, and works as a freelance casting director and consultant for various theatre companies around the US. She was featured in American Theatre Magazine's “Theatre Workers You Should Know” for her work in casting, and in Newcity Stage's "Players 2023: Who Really Performs in Chicago Right Now". She teaches at the University of Illinois Chicago as an adjunct faculty member and has guest lectured at DePaul University, Ball State, and Utah State University. MFA in Performance from University of Hawaii at Manoa, BA in Directing and Acting from Boise State University, and proud graduate of The School at Steppenwolf 2019. Member of SAG-AFTRA and The Dramatist Guild. More at www.kmurrellmyers.com.
ABOUT THE FINALISTS
Winner
BLACK BEAR ISLAND by Karissa Murrell Myers
Runners-Up
THE LOST WOMEN by Nubia Monks
SIX MEN DRESSED LIKE JOSEPH STALIN by Dianne Nora
WIFE OF HEADLESS MAN INVESTIGATES HER OWN DISAPPEARANCE by Yussef El Guindi
Semi-Finalists
ASSUMING POSITIVE INTENTIONS by Deneen Reynolds-Knott
BLOODY NOSES by Matilda Corley Schulman
DHARMA by Nanya Agrawal
FEAR AND WONDER by Jason Tseng
FUGITIVES IN AMERICA by Jordan Ratliff
GREEK TRAGEDY by Lia Romeo
GROWING UP WITH BIG HAIR by Diana Suarez Mucci
IN THE TIME OF THE APOCALYPSE by Kendra Augustin
THE MAKING AND BREAKING OF GLASS by Dylan Zwickel
THE MOUSE & THE MOUSTACHE by Anthony Dodge
A NEW NEWER NORMAL by John Mabey
THE PRINCESS AMPERSAND HAS SOME NOTES by Tiffany Antone
REUNION by Nandita Shenoy
SIGNS AND WONDERS (A DELIRIUM FOR A WOUNDED WORLD) by Fengar Gael
SISTER by Lindsay Bourne
TAKE ME BACK TO YELLOWSTONE by Mike Nappi
WITHOUT GOD AS MY LOVER by Megan Medley
THE WORLD FROM KAMPALA by Chris Weikel
THE 2024 MAZUMDAR AWARD
The next Mazumdar Award submission window will open for new, unproduced, full length plays from August 1-15, 2024. The winning play will receive a cash prize and be produced in an upcoming Alleyway mainstage season. Details and information will be available at alleyway.com.
ABOUT ALLEYWAY
Alleyway Theatre, Buffalo's award-winning nationally-recognized home for new plays since 1980, is a professional theatre company and collaborative incubator for bold, visceral new theatre. Education & development programs foster the talents of emergent artists from Western New York and beyond ... embracing fearlessness, theatricality, humanity, and authenticity.
Now in its 45th season, Alleyway occupies a former Greyound bus station in Buffalo's historic Theatre District. The company produces four major new works each season, in addition to special presentations throughout the year. Its education arm specializes in offering students of all ages opportunities to create new theatre, not just as performers but as playwrights and devisers. Alleyworks is the play development umbrella, which this year will present three major new play workshops.
The company has been featured on NPR's Morning Edition, and this spring was represented last season off-Broadway as a developer of Alex Brightman's THE LIFE AND SLIMES OF Marc Summers which played the Alleyway in 2023.
Alleyway Theatre is located at 1 Curtain Up Alley, Buffalo NY 14202 – right in the heart of Buffalo's Theatre District. More details are available at alleyway.com
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