Dave Harris Wins The 2024 Relentless Award For MANAKIN

The American Playwriting Foundation and Building for the Arts have announced the winner of the 2024 Relentless Award, MANAKIN by Dave Harris. Harris will receive a $50,000 prize as well as developmental opportunities to be announced.

"I will never forget the moment of receiving the call about this award,” said Harris. “The legacy of The Relentless Award, starting with Philip Seymour Hoffman, is profound, and I am deeply honored and grateful to be a part of its lineage.”

MANAKIN is a wedding story. But not just any wedding— this one brings together four generations for the union of Son and Daughter. Son and Daughter are getting married, just like their parents before them, and their parents before them. Oh, and this wedding is also a Satanic invocation. All the vessels are poised to spill. A raw, lyrical, darkly hilarious piece about intergenerational trauma, love in all its forms, and the ways in which language both describes and creates the world, this play channels ancient traditions and universal yearnings, drawing us into a sacred ritual. If this generation does things right, a bounteous future awaits us— including the arrival of the ultimate guest.  The Relentless Award's submission process is completely blind, and the winning play is selected without any knowledge of the playwright's identity. Despite this, two of Harris' other plays have been previously recognized by the American Playwriting Foundation: he was a semifinalist in 2016 and 2019 for his plays White History and Incendiary, respectively.

Dave Harris is a poet and playwright from West Philly. Selected plays include Tambo & Bones (LA Drama Critics Award “Best New Play,” Time Out London “Best Plays of 2023,” Playwrights Horizons, Center Theatre Group), Exception to the Rule (Roundabout Theatre Company, 2022), and Everybody Black (Humana Festival 2019). His first feature film, Summertime premiered at the 2020 Sundance Film Festival and was released in 2021. Selected honors include the 2023 Horton Foote Prize, the 2019 Ollie Award, The Lorraine Hansberry Award and Mark Twain Award from The Kennedy Center, The International Commendation for The Bruntwood Prize, the Venturous Fellowship from The Lark, and a Cave Canem poetry fellowship amongst others. Dave has written feature and television projects for AMC (“Interview with a Vampire”), Netflix, Amazon (“The Fortress of Solitude”), and FX amongst others. His first full-length collection of poetry, Patricide, was published by Button Poetry. 

“There are periods in life where it feels like all of the writing has left your body, and then you write another play and it saves you,” Harris said. “This is what MANAKIN was for me. Perhaps the scariest play I've written. It is the honor of my career that it was read and rewarded by so many artists whom I have been inspired by since I first began writing plays.”

More than 1,200 plays were submitted for this year's award. The winning play was selected by an illustrious panel of judges, including Eric Bogosian, Thomas Bradshaw, Aleshea Harris, Branden Jacobs-Jenkins, David Bar Katz, Lynn Nottage, Brontez Purnell, Jonathan Marc Sherman, Lloyd Suh, and Lucy Thurber.

The jury also awarded $2,000 prizes to three finalists: My Father Was Shot in the Back of the Head by Gloria Majule; The Good Boy Game by Patrick Vermillion; and The TeeTee & Lala Show by Donja R. Love.

The winning and finalist plays will be honored at a ceremony on Monday, October 21st at Theatre Row. The evening will feature an exclusive first look at MANAKIN, plus speeches from special guests and a reception. A limited number of $20 tickets are available for purchase at https://bfany.org/theatre-row/shows/the-2024-relentless-award-celebration. 

Next year's Relentless Award will be given to a full-length musical. The Relentless Musical Award, the first of which was given in 2022 to Shayok Misha Chowdhury and Laura Grill Jaye, was established in honor of songwriter Adam Schlesinger. Submissions are expected to open later this year.

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