Hermitage Announces Playwright Naomi Iizuka as Winner of 2024-2025 Hermitage Major Theater Award

Andy Sandberg, Artistic Director and CEO of the Hermitage Artist Retreat, has announced that California-based playwright Naomi Iizuka has been selected as the fifth recipient of the Hermitage Major Theater Award (HMTA). This jury-selected prize, established by the Hermitage in 2021 with generous support from Flora Major and the Kutya Major Foundation, offers one of the largest unrestricted nonprofit theater commissions in the United States. Iizuka will receive a cash prize of $35,000, a residency at the Hermitage Artist Retreat in Florida, and a developmental workshop in a major arts capital – which for this commission is anticipated for Chicago in late 2026. 

Naomi Iizuka is an award-winning playwright, educator, and theater maker based in California. Her body of work includes Anon(ymous), 36 Views, Polaroid Stories, At the Vanishing Point, Language of Angels, Skin, Tattoo Girl, and more. Her plays have been produced at theaters across the country, including BAM’s Next Wave Festival, Berkeley Rep, the Goodman, Actors’ Theatre of Louisville, the Guthrie, Cornerstone, Children’s Theater Company, The Public Theater, and Campo Santo. lizuka is an alumna of New Dramatists and the recipient of a PEN/Laura Pels Award, an Alpert Award, a Whiting Award, a Stavis Award from The National Theatre Conference, a Joyce Foundation Award, and a Hodder Fellowship. She was a Berlind Playwright-in-Residence at Princeton University. Iizuka has written for “The Terror: Infamy” (AMC), “Tokyo Vice” (HBO Max), “Bosch: Legacy” (Amazon), and “The Sympathizer” (HBO Max). She is the head of the MFA Playwriting program at University of California, San Diego.

“I was thrilled and genuinely honored to find out that I had received the Hermitage Major Theater Award,” said 2024-2025 HMTA winner Naomi Iizuka upon receiving the news. “To be chosen by one’s peers is so meaningful. It felt like this unexpected and incredibly generous gift in what I guess you could call the vast expanse of my mid-career.” 

“Amidst four extraordinary and deserving finalists, Naomi Iizuka confirmed herself to be a passionate and insightful playwright who impressed us all with her timely and compelling proposal,” said Hermitage Artistic Director and CEO Andy Sandberg. “We are honored to support Naomi as she creates this ambitious new play at this exciting stage of her career. I must thank our brilliant and dedicated Award Committee – Susan Booth, Glenn Davis, and Chay Yew – for their passion, intelligence, and care throughout this process. I also want to congratulate Luis Alfaro, Zora Howard, and José Rivera, each of whom are innovative and exceptional playwrights with thrilling, original ideas for new theatrical works.”

The Hermitage Major Theater Award (HMTA) was established in 2021 to recognize a playwright or theater artist with a $35,000 commission to create a new, original, and impactful piece of theater. Three distinguished finalists for the fifth Hermitage Major Theater Award include celebrated playwright Luis Alfaro, the 2024 TCG World Theater Artist and the recipient of a 2024 recognition in literature from the American Academy of Arts & Letters; Zora Howard, a Pulitzer Prize finalist, writer, performer, and Hermitage alumna whose plays include Stew, Hang Time, The Master’s Tools, Bust, and Good Faith; and José Rivera, an accomplished playwright and screenwriter who has won two Obie Awards for his plays Marisol and References to Salvador Dali Make Me Hot, and was nominated for an Academy Award for his screenplay to The Motorcycle Diaries. Each finalist has been awarded a Hermitage residency and Fellowship, in addition to a cash prize of $1,000.

HMTA winners and finalists are nominated and selected by a jury of visionary and forward-thinking artistic leaders. The 2024-2025 HMTA Award Committee included Susan V. Booth, Artistic Director of Chicago’s Goodman Theatre and longtime director of the Alliance Theatre in Atlanta; Glenn Davis, an accomplished actor, producer, and Artistic Director of Steppenwolf Theatre Company; and Chay Yew, an Obie Award-winning director and playwright who served as longtime Artistic Director of Victory Gardens Theater. 

“Naomi Iizuka has been charting new territory in our practice for years and is still so untapped in terms of what’s yet to come,” said Susan Booth. “It’s hugely exciting to anticipate a new work from her, and I’m so grateful to the Hermitage for making this kind of investment in this transformational artist.”

“Naomi Izuka is an exceptional artist with a vastly disparate collection of plays that speak to her multicultural background,” noted Glenn Davis. “I am thrilled that the Hermitage will allow her to create her next ambitious work.” 

 “If theater is the live cultivation of civic discourse, expansion of conversation, and evocation of empathy in public spaces, Naomi Iizuka moves our field forward with her plays unlike any other writer,” added Chay Yew. “She fearlessly uncovers the stories we need now, in a voice that is uniquely hers, which clarifies and amplifies the urgent issues of our time. Always the passionate artist who reflects the myriad lives of our nation and world politically and socially, she chronicles and gives voice to the voiceless, and visibility to the invisible.” 

In addition to the $35,000 commission, the recipient of the annual HMTA will receive six weeks of residency at the Hermitage’s historic beachfront campus to develop the new theatrical work, as well as a reading or workshop in a leading arts and cultural center. Naomi Iizuka’s commission is expected to receive its first presentation in late 2026 in Chicago, which will be the first Chicago presentation of an HMTA commission.

In describing her intended HMTA commission, currently titled Casa de Mañana Iizuka shares: “Casa de Mañana is a dark comedy that explores what it means to make art when your life and the world around you are imploding. Set in an assisted living and memory care facility, the play tells the story of an underemployed theater artist who’s trying to make a play based on stories that the residents tell her about their lives – except the residents don’t want to talk to her. And who can blame them? They have their own problems to deal with and their own secret agendas. Why should they tell stories to a stranger? Casa de Mañana asks what it means to tell the story of your life. How do you make sense of the craziness and mystery of the people around you? How do you tell the truth? And what choices do you make in the time you have left?”

In the spirit of the Hermitage’s commitment to the arts across multiple disciplines, recipients of the Hermitage Major Theater Award are encouraged to create a commission that directly or indirectly represents the role and impact of art – musical, literary, theatrical, visual, dance, or otherwise – in our culture and society. As to how this will infuse Iizuka’s commission, she explains that “the arts are a place where we can both step back and dive deep; where we can have difficult conversations about what’s going on in the world in a way that allows us to listen to one another and really hear one another.”

This distinguished Hermitage Major Theater Award recognition is not an award for an existing work, but rather it is designed as a commission that shall serve as a catalyst and inspiration to a theater artist to create a new, original, and impactful piece of theater. Further, the prize is intended to bridge the connection between the Hermitage in Sarasota County, Florida – where the commission is born – and other leading arts and culture centers around the world, including New York, London, Chicago, and other notable arts capitals where great theater is frequently developed and presented. Previous recipients of the HMTA have included Pulitzer Prize finalist and “Only Murders in the Building” writer Madeleine George; theater-maker, director, and The New Group’s Director of Artistic Projects Shariffa Ali; award-winning composer and theater artist Imani Uzuri; and Olivier Award-winning playwright and librettist Chris Bush. George and Ali had their first readings at New York’s MCC Theater in November of 2023. George’s The Sore Loser is a Faustian comedy reimagining the patriarchy through a small-town bowling tournament, and Ali’s play Hero chronicles a South African village faced with an opportunity for national glory through a singling competition. Uzuri’s commission, Lighthouse of the Singing Birds, will have an invitation-only presentation at New York Theatre Workshop on November 18th. Chris Bush’s new HMTA commission, Orlando (FL), is expected to have its first presentation in London in the fall of 2025.

 “This award is designed to be transformational for its recipients, providing not only significant funds and recognition, but also invaluable time, space, and inspiration at the Hermitage, plus an opportunity for these innovative theater artists to workshop and develop their original ideas,” said Andy Sandberg. An accomplished director, writer, and Tony Award-winning producer who recently directed the U.K. premiere of Operation Epsilon, Sandberg took the helm as Artistic Director and CEO of the Hermitage in early 2020. “In addition to introducing a new work of theater to the world each year, this is a meaningful way for the Hermitage to take a further step in supporting the artistic process, offering developmental resources to these extraordinary artists and their new commissions.”  

The Hermitage Major Theater Award is made possible with a generous multi-year gift to the Hermitage from Flora Major and the Kutya Major Foundation. In the aftermath of the pandemic and recognizing the difficult challenges facing theater artists, the Hermitage and Major awarded three HMTA commissions in the inaugural twelve months of this initiative. Moving forward, the recipient will be selected annually and will have two years to complete their commission. 

“No one does more for the arts and the creation of new work than the Hermitage,” added Flora Major, founder and trustee of the Kutya Major Foundation. “The impact and success of this commissioning program are further evidence that Andy and his team have established the Hermitage as a leading international arts incubator. I hope others who are passionate about the arts will support the important work that’s happening there. The impact and reach of the Hermitage is greater than most people realize – it’s truly unbelievable.” Flora Major was named an Honorary Member of the Hermitage Board of Trustees earlier this year.

In addition to this commission, the Hermitage Artist Retreat annually awards the prestigious jury-selected Hermitage Greenfield Prize (HGP), a $35,000 commission (recently increased from $30,000) that rotates each year between the disciplines of music, theater, and visual art. Past HGP recipients in theater have included Deepa Purohit (2024), Aleshea Harris (2021), Martyna Majok (2018), Nilo Cruz (2015), John Guare (2012), and Craig Lucas (2009).

A leading national arts incubator, the Hermitage is the only major arts organization in Florida’s Gulf Coast exclusively committed to supporting the development and creation of new work across all artistic disciplines. The Hermitage hosts artists on its Gulf Coast Manasota Key campus for multi-week residencies, where diverse and accomplished artists from around the world and across multiple disciplines create and develop new works of theater, music, visual art, literature, dance, film, and more. As part of their residencies, Hermitage Fellows participate in free year-round community programs, offering audiences in the region a unique opportunity to engage with some of the world’s leading artists and to get an authentic “sneak peek” into extraordinary projects and artistic minds before their works go on to major galleries, concert halls, theaters, and museums around the world. These innovative programs include performances, conversations, readings, interactive experiences, open studios, school programs, teacher workshops, and more, serving thousands in our regional community each year.

Note: The Hermitage recently experienced devastating impact from hurricanes Helene and Milton, and the organization is working to reopen its beachfront campus on Manasota Key as quickly as possible.

For more information about the Hermitage or to make a tax-deductible contribution to the Hermitage’s hurricane repair efforts, please visit: HermitageArtistRetreat.org.

The Hermitage Artist Retreat

Sarasota County, Florida

Andy Sandberg, Artistic Director and CEO

The Hermitage is a leading national arts incubator and multidisciplinary artist retreat located on Manasota Key, Florida. For more than two decades, the Hermitage has invited accomplished artists across multiple disciplines for residencies on its beachfront campus, which is on the National Register of Historic Places. Hermitage artists are invited to interact with the local community, reaching thousands of Gulf Coast residents and visitors each year with unique and inspiring programs. Hermitage Fellows have included 17 Pulitzer Prize winners, Poets Laureate, Guggenheim and MacArthur Fellows, and multiple Tony, Emmy, Grammy, Oscar winners and nominees. Works created at this beachside retreat by a diverse and accomplished group of Hermitage alumni have gone on to renowned theaters, concert halls, and galleries throughout the world. Each year, the Hermitage awards the Hermitage Greenfield Prize for a new work of art, the Hermitage Major Theater Award for an original theater commission, and the Aspen Music Festival’s Hermitage Prize in Composition.

For more information, visit HermitageArtistRetreat.org.

BIOS

WINNER OF THE 2024-2025 HERMITAGE MAJOR THEATER AWARD

Naomi Iizuka

Naomi lizuka is a California based playwright and the 2024-2025 winner of the Hermitage Major Theater Award. Her plays include Anon(ymous), 36 Views, Polaroid Stories, At the Vanishing Point, Language of Angels, Skin, Tattoo Girl, Aloha Say the Pretty Girls, Citizen 13559, Concerning Strange Devices from the Distant West, and Sleep (in collaboration with RipeTime). Her plays have been produced at theaters across the country including BAM’s Next Wave Festival, Berkeley Rep, the Goodman, Actors’ Theatre of Louisville, the Guthrie, Cornerstone, Children’s Theater Company, The Public Theater, and Campo Santo. lizuka is an alumna of New Dramatists and the recipient of a PEN/Laura Pels Award, an Alpert Award, a Whiting Award, a Stavis Award from The National Theatre Conference, a Joyce Foundation Award, and a Hodder Fellowship. She was a Berlind Playwright-in-Residence at Princeton University. In television, Iizuka has written for “The Terror: Infamy” (AMC), “Tokyo Vice” (HBO Max), “Bosch: Legacy” (Amazon), and “The Sympathizer” (HBO Max). Iizuka heads the MFA Playwriting program at UC San Diego, where she is continually inspired by the next generation of playwrights.

2024-2025 AWARD COMMITTEE 

Susan V. Booth

Susan V. Booth is The Goodman Theatre Artistic Director. She rejoined Goodman Theatre in the fall of 2022, having previously served as the theater’s director of new play development. In the intervening years, she was the Artistic Director of Atlanta’s Tony Award-winning Alliance Theatre. She has directed nationally at Goodman Theatre, Hartford Stage, Ford’s Theatre, La Jolla Playhouse, St. Louis Repertory Theatre, Victory Gardens, Court Theatre, and others. She holds degrees from Denison and Northwestern Universities and was a fellow of the National Critics Institute and the Kemper Foundation. She has held teaching positions at Northwestern, DePaul and Emory Universities and is a past President of the Bord of Directors for the Theatre Communications Group, the national service organization for the field. She is a 2024 Daniel Burnham Fellow and a member of the International Women’s Forum. 

Glenn Davis

Glenn Davis is an actor, producer, and Artistic Director of Steppenwolf Theatre Company alongside Audrey Francis, where he has been an ensemble member since 2017. His credits include Downstate, The Christians, You Got Older, The Brother/Sister Plays and Head of Passes, King James (also Mark Taper Forum), and most recently, Describe the Night. Broadway credits include Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo (also Kirk Douglas Theatre, Mark Taper Forum). Off-Broadway credits include Transfers (MCC Theatre), Wig Out! (Vineyard Theatre) and Downstate (Playwrights Horizons). Other regional credits include Moscow x6 (Williamstown Theatre Festival). International credits include Downstate (National Theatre, UK), Edward II, The Winter’s Tale and As You Like It (Stratford Festival), as well as Othello at The Shakespeare Company. Television credits include Billions, 24, The Unit, Jericho and The Good Wife. Glenn is an artistic associate at the Young Vic in London and at the Vineyard Theatre in New York. He is also a partner in Cast Iron Entertainment, a collective of artists consisting of Sterling K. Brown, Brian Tyree Henry, Jon Michael Hill, Andre Holland and Tarell Alvin McCraney. Cast Iron is currently in residence at The Geffen Playhouse in Los Angeles. In 2021, Glenn founded The Chatham Grove Company along with his producing partner Tarell Alvin McCraney, which is currently in an overall deal with Universal Content Productions (UCP).

Chay Yew

Chay Yew is a director, playwright, and Artistic Director. As a director, his New York credits include The Public Theater, Playwrights Horizons, New York Theatre Workshop, Signature Theatre, New York City Center Encores!, Audible Theatre, Flea, Rattlestick, Playwrights Realm, Ensemble Studio Theatre, National Asian American Theatre Company, and Ma Yi. His regional credits include The Goodman Theatre, Oregon Shakespeare Festival, American Conservatory Theatre, Berkeley Rep, Arena Stage, La Jolla Playhouse, Goodspeed Opera, Alley Theatre, South Coast Rep, Old Globe, Center Theatre Group, Hartford Stage, Denver Center Theater, Seattle Rep, Cincinnati Playhouse, Kennedy Center, Humana Festival, Woolly Mammoth Theatre, Huntington Theatre, Empty Space, Portland Center Stage, East West Players, Singapore Repertory Theatre, and others. He is a recipient of the OBIE Award for Direction. As a playwright, his plays include Porcelain, A Language of Their Own, Red, Wonderland, Question 27 Question 28, A Distant Shore, 17, and Visible Cities. He received the London Fringe Award for Best Play, George and Elisabeth Marton Playwriting Award, GLAAD Media Award, Made in America Award, AEA/SAG/AFTRA 2004 Diversity Honor, and Robert Chesley Award. His plays are published by Grove Press. From 2011 to 2020, he was the Artistic Director of Victory Gardens Theater in Chicago. During his tenure, out of forty-three productions, eighteen plays received world premieres of which one went to Broadway, six were produced off-Broadway, while others were presented regionally and abroad. He created the Chicago Play Cycle Play and produced eight new plays reflecting and representing the city’s diverse communities. He also established the Directors Inclusion Initiative to develop emerging directors who identify as people of color, disabled, women, gender non‐conforming, and/or LGBTQIA+; the Next Generation Fellowship, a professional development program, for our next generation of arts leaders and managers of color; and the Resident Theatre Program, a multi-year residency program for Chicago storefront theaters. He instituted an intentional focus on diverse work that created civic dialogue towards meaningful social change and equity. For his leadership, he was awarded the Iris Award for Outstanding Commitment to Connecting Chicago Communities and the Arts, and the Impact Award for Bold and Inclusive Artistic Leadership. In 2024, He was the recipient of the Doris Duke Artist Award.

2024-2025 HMTA FINALISTS

Luis Alfaro

Luis Alfaro is a Chicano playwright born and raised in downtown Los Angeles. He is the 2024 TCG World Theatre Artist and a 2024 award recipient in literature from the American Academy of Arts & Letters. He has received fellowships from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, popularly known as a “Genius Grant,” awarded to people who have demonstrated expertise and exceptional creativity in their respective fields; United States Artists; Ford Foundation Art of Change; Joyce Foundation; Mellon Foundation; and is the recipient of the PEN America/Laura Pels International Foundation Theater Award for a Master Dramatist. He was the inaugural Playwright-in-Residence for six seasons at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival (2013- 2019); Playwright’s Ensemble at Chicago’s Victory Gardens Theater (2013-2020); Inaugural Latinx Playwrights at the Los Angeles Theatre Center (since 2021); and Ojai Playwrights Conference member from 2002-2022. He has developed and produced plays at the Mark Taper Forum/CTG (1995-2005, 2021-2022). His plays include Aztlan, Earlimart, The Travelers, Electricidad, Oedipus El Rey, Mojada, and have been seen at regional theatres throughout the United States, Latin America, Canada, and Europe. He is director of the MFA in Dramatic Writing at the University of Southern California. Luis spent two decades in the Los Angeles Poetry and Performance Art communities.

Zora Howard

Zora Howard is a Hermitage alumna and a 2024 Hermitage Greenfield Prize finalist, making her the only artist to date to be nominated for both the Hermitage Major Theater Award and the Hermitage Greenfield Prize. Harlem-bred writer and performer. Plays include Bust (The Alliance/The Goodman world premiere, forthcoming); The Master’s Tools (Wiener Festwochen; Under the Radar; Williamstown Theatre Festival); Hang Time (The Flea); Stew (P73 Productions); Good Faith and The Motion. Her work has been developed at Stillwright, The Lark, Ojai Playwrights Conference, Cape Cod Theatre Project, and Page 73, among others. In 2020, her feature film Premature (Film Independent John Cassavetes Award nominee), which she co-wrote with filmmaker Rashaad Ernesto Green, opened in theaters following its world premiere at the 2019 Sundance Film Festival. Zora is a Pulitzer Prize Finalist (Stew), Helen Merrill Award Recipient and Lilly Go Write A Play Award Recipient, Susan Smith Blackburn Prize and L. Arnold Weissberger New Play Award Finalist (Bust), a Creative Capital Finalist (Hang Time), and the inaugural Judith Champion Fellow at Manhattan Theatre Club.

JOSÉ RIVERA

José Rivera’s twenty-six full-length plays have been seen nationally and internationally and translated into a dozen languages. Obie Award winners Marisol and References to Salvador Dali Make Me Hot, both produced by The Public Theater (NY), are taught around the country. Other plays include Cloud Tectonics, Boleros for the Disenchanted, Sueño, Sonnets for an Old Century, School of the Americas, Massacre (Sing to Your Children), Brainpeople, Adoration of the Old Woman, The House of Ramon Iglesia, Another Word for Beauty, The Maids, The Kiss of the Spiderwoman, Each Day Dies with Sleep, Lovesong (Imperfect), Your Name Means Dream, The Hours are Feminine, and A Lunar Rhapsody. His screenplay for The Motorcycle Diaries was nominated for a 2005 Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay, as well as a BAFTA and Writers Guild Award. His film adaptation On the Road premiered at the 2012 Cannes Film Festival and his Trade was the first film to premiere at the United Nations. Rivera co-created and produced “Eerie, Indiana” (NBC) and was a staff writer on “Penny Dreadful: City of Angels” (Showtime). He has written sixteen episodes of the upcoming Netflix series based on One Hundred Years of Solitude.

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