Court Theatre And University Of Chicago's Arts Committee Welcomes Pulitzer Prize Winner Martyna Majok

ANNOUNCING-University of Chicago's Committee on Theatre & Performance Studies (TAPS), in collaboration with Court Theatre, is proud to host a discussion with Martyna Majok, UChicago alum and playwright of the 2018 Pulitzer Prize Winning play, Cost of Living. Moderated by TAPS Visiting Assistant Professor of Practice, Annie Dorsen. This event includes a live reading of an excerpt from Majok's Cost of Living.

Martyna Majok was born in Bytom, Poland and raised in Jersey and Chicago. She was awarded the 2018 Pulitzer Prize for Drama for Cost of Living (Williamstown Theatre Festival, Manhattan Theatre Club). Other plays include Sanctuary City (New York Theatre Workshop), Queens (LCT3/Lincoln Center Theater, La Jolla Playhouse), and Ironbound (Steppenwolf Theatre Company, Round House Theatre, WP Theater/Rattlestick Playwright Theater, Geffen Playhouse, National Theatre of Warsaw, among others). Awards include The Lucille Lortel Award for Outstanding New Play, The Greenfield Prize (first female recipient in drama), Champions of Change Award from the NYC Mayor's Office, Francesca Primus Prize, two Jane Chambers Playwriting Awards, The Lanford Wilson Prize, The Lilly Award's Stacey Mindich Prize, Helen Merrill Emerging Playwright Award, Charles MacArthur Award for Outstanding Original New Play from The Helen Hayes Awards, Jean Kennedy Smith Playwriting Award, ANPF Women's Invitational Prize, David Calicchio Prize, Global Age Project Prize, NYTW 2050 Fellowship, NNPN Smith Prize for Political Playwriting, and Merage Foundation Fellowship for The American Dream. MFA: Yale School of Drama, Juilliard; BA: University of Chicago. Alumna of Ensemble Studio Theatre's Youngblood and WP Lab. Core Writer at Playwrights' Center, NYTW Usual Suspect, and member of The Dramatists Guild and The Writers Guild of America East. Current theatre commissions include The Public Theater, Geffen Playhouse, La Jolla Playhouse, Manhattan Theatre Club, South Coast Rep, The Almeida Theatre and The Bush Theatre in London. TV series project currently in development with HBO. Martyna was the 2015-2016 PoNY Fellow at the Lark Play Development Center and is a 2018-2019 Hodder Fellow at Princeton University. martynamajok.com

WINNER OF THE 2018 PULITZER PRIZE - "[COST OF LIVING] slams the door on uplifting stereotypes...Tremendous emotion flows around the impediments Majok has placed in the characters' paths...In both of [the play's] stories...the biggest handicaps are the universal ones: fear and disconnection...immensely haunting...[Majok] is exquisitely attuned to the many varieties of alienation hiding in plain sight in America." -NY Times. "...[COST OF LIVING] provides a piercing look at the obstacles faced by disabled people and, more importantly, the human condition in general...the characters, dialogue and situations resonate with emotional truth about loneliness, financial desperation and the vulnerability of disabled people forced to rely on others to assist them with basic human needs." -Hollywood Reporter. "...a deeply human depiction of life with disability...[The play] doesn't condescend to any of the characters. Ani and John May be in wheelchairs, but that's the least interesting thing about them in Majok's script...Majok mines their senses of humor, diverse personality traits, and opportunities to be both likable and hateful...As much as COST OF LIVING is a play about disability, it also very much focuses on what it takes to survive in a world where you are the forgotten...Life isn't easy, no matter what you look like, and Majok doesn't sugarcoat it." -TheaterMania.com.

Martyna Majok Introduces Cost of Living at Hampstead Theatre 2017 Cost of Living at Manhattan Theatre Club

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