Jeremy O. Harris Reveals 2024 Yale Drama Series Winner Keegon Schuett's THIS DRY SPELL

“There's a lot of magic that happens in our world if you know how to really see it,” said Keegon Schuett, who will receive one of the world's most prestigious playwriting prizes, the Yale Drama Series Prize, for the play this dry spell. On Friday, October 25, Schuett will be honored at a reception at Yale Schwarzman Center for the conferral of the $10,000 David Charles Horn Prize and a staged reading of this dry spell in conjunction with the Yale Schwarzman Center and New Haven's Long Wharf Theatre as part of The Artistic Congress. Selected from more than 2,000 plays from 55 countries, this dry spell was chosen by playwright Jeremy O. Harris and will be published by Yale University Press, who partner with the David Charles Horn Foundation to administer the prize and bring each year's winning play into print.

“In this time of immense political and social upheaval when it feels as though hopelessness is a cloud that hangs heavy over all our interactions, this dry spell hit me like a cleansing rain,” said Harris, in his second year as the competition judge. “With its simple yet deeply poetic love story I found myself swept up in ways plays once did for me as I was first discovering the dramas that made me want to act and write for the theatre. It also felt like a brazenly assured work in a season that brought to me some of the most accomplished new plays I've read since taking on this post.”

Francine Horn, director of the David Charles Horn Foundation, said, “I'm not surprised that Jeremy O. Harris selected this dry spell by Keegon Schuett as the winner of the 17th Yale Drama Series competition. Jeremy's choices have always sent us clear messages of life's challenges either trapped in history or disguised in fantasy. Keegon's this dry spell is an imaginative portrayal of alienation, isolation, conflicted love, metamorphosis, hope and beauty. I read it twice and agree with Jeremy that it is an uplifting poetic piece in this cloudy uncertain world of today, and that it merited the Yale Drama Series prize. Welcome, Keegon, to our amazing family of winners!” 

Schuett said, “As a queer, gender non-conforming playwright, it is an incredible honor to be recognized by the David Charles Horn Foundation and Yale Drama Series for this dry spell. The play is deeply personal to me. It celebrates trans identity at a time when many places would like to erase us. I wrote this play to help myself believe that the world could be a safe place for me. I hid myself for years because it did not feel that way. It is validating for my work to be recognized on this level. There are many other people like me performing as drag artists, surviving as servers, and hesitating by the doors of public restrooms. Their stories matter. I hope this play nourishes them too.”

Rachel Fine, Yale Schwarzman Center's executive director, added, “We congratulate Keegon Schuett and express our extreme excitement in having the honor to present the Yale Drama Series' staged reading for the first time, celebrating both the playwright and the play, this dry spell, on October 25 in partnership with Long Wharf Theatre.”

Shortlisted playwrights for the 2024 Yale Drama Prize were, in alphabetical order,

Jess Edwards, for Spooky Action at a Distance
Gina Femia, for This Happened Once at the Romance Depot Off the I-87 in Westchester
Duncan Gates, for Arkansas 
Ayvaunn Penn, for For the Love of Uvalde
Reid Pope, for Amino Amino Amino Amino Amino Amino Amino Amino Amino
Michael Quinn, for The River East
TyLie Shider, for Whittier 
Kayla Stokes, for Literally Just Girls 
Zachary Wilcox, for I just like you | a queer myth

About Keegon Schuett

Schuett is a playwright, filmmaker, and performance artist from Memphis, Tenn. Schuett earned an MFA from Northwestern University for thesis work that focused on queer identity constructed through drag performance and utilized documentary film as an autobiographical form. Schuett's plays Slow, Kitty Steals a Dog, Brace Yourself, Count Spatula, and goddess of tears are published by YouthPLAYS. Schuett currently works with a collective of writers through Voices of the South.

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