Jocelyn Bioh Wins 2024 Horton Foote Prize for JAJA'S AFRICAN HAIR BRAIDING

The 2024 Prize has been awarded to Jocelyn Bioh for her play, Jaja’s African Hair Braiding.

Ms. Bioh will be honored at a private celebration on Monday, October 7th at New York’s Lotos Club. She will be presented with $50,000 and a limited edition of Keith Carter’s iconic photograph of , which is found in the permanent collection of the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C. The prize will be presented by the play’s director, Whitney White.

Jaja’s African Hair Braiding was commissioned by Williamstown Theatre Festival and was nominated by Manhattan Theatre Club. The play which premiered on Broadway in October 2023 was nominated for five Tonys, including Best Play. The Manhattan Theatre Club production will embark on a multi-city tour this fall starting at Arena Stage in Washington D.C. in September, moving to Berkeley Repertory Theatre in November, and going on to Chicago Shakespeare Theater in January.

Ms. Bioh’s dazzling play is set in a bustling hair braiding shop in Harlem where we meet a lively and eclectic group of West African hair braiders as they transform their neighborhood clients. On a hot summer day they laugh, fight, and share their dreams about the future. The uncertainty of their circumstances simmer below the surface of their lives and when it boils over, it forces this tight-knit community to confront what it means to be an outsider on the edge of the place they call home.

This year the Artistic Judges Panel included award-winning actors Kathleen Chalfant (Honorary Chair) and Michael Urie; director and Artistic Director of New York Theatre Workshop, Patricia McGregor; and director/writer/actor, Jennifer Chang.
Regarding Ms. Bioh’s play, Judge Chair Kathleen Chalfant commented: “This play is a perfect example of how the more specific a work of art, the more universal its reach.  Jaja takes us into its very particular world and seduces all of us with its beauty and humor and great heart and dares at the end to tell the truth about this difficult place we live.”

Judge Michael Urie continued, “A joyful ride and so funny…Fabulous characters, setting, and action, with a stunning and powerful final turn.”

Also to be presented at this year’s ceremony will be the 2024 Prize Gratitude Gift, awarded each prize year to a 501c3 non-profit organization that  endeavors to have a positive impact through the work and art of theater, as chosen by the Honorary Chair. This year’s $10,000 gift, at the direction of Kathleen Chalfant, will be awarded to Rattlestick Theater.

Founded in 1994, Rattlestick Theater has been steadfast in supporting diverse, provocative work and fostering the future voices of the American theater. Their mission is to produce adventurous new plays that are formally inventive and theatrically expansive. Now led by Artistic Director Will Davis, the first transgender person to run an off-Broadway theater, Rattlestick is redoubling its efforts to support theater artists who are responding to the complexities of our culture through the radical distribution of resources toward the creation of new theatrical work.

Awarded since 2010, the biennial Prize recognizes excellence in American theatre, and is named in honor of the late Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright. Each Prize year prominent professional theatres throughout the country are invited to submit a newly produced or an unproduced play, with unproduced works slated for an upcoming premiere production. After a national reading committee narrows the field, ensuring that each script receives multiple blind readings, a selection committee reads and moves forward the top finalists to the judges who determine the Winner.

Jocelyn Bioh

is an award-winning, Tony Award nominated Ghanaian-American writer/performer from New York City. Her written works for theatre include: Jaja’s African Hair Braiding (MTC) which premiered on Broadway in 2023 and was nominated for 5 Tony Awards including Best Play, Merry Wives (Public Theater/Shakespeare in the Park, PBS Great Performances, 2022 Drama Desk Award Winner for Outstanding Adaptation,) Nollywood Dreams (MCC Theater), book writer for the Broadway bound musical Goddess (Berkeley Rep, 2022), the multi-award winning School Girls; Or, the African Mean Girls Play which was originally produced at MCC Theater in 2017/2018 and has gone on to have over 65 regional productions and premiered in the UK in 2023. Jocelyn was a 2017 TOW Playwriting Fellow and has won several playwriting awards including being awarded the Dramatist Guild Hull-Warriner Prize twice, The Steinberg Playwriting Award, and Drama Desk awards. Jocelyn has also written for TV on “Russian Doll”, 's “She’s Gotta Have It,” (Netflix,) “Tiny Beautiful Things” (Hulu,) the new Star Wars series “The Acolyte” (Disney+) and she is also writing the live screen film adaptation of the hit Broadway musical Once on This Island for Disney.

Previous recipients of the Prize include Lynn Nottage for Ruined, Will Eno for Middletown, David Lindsay-Abaire for Good People, Naomi Wallace for The Liquid Plain,  Dan O’Brien for The Body of an American, Suzan-Lori Parks for Father Comes Home from  the Wars (Parts 1, 2, & 3), Jordan Harrison for Marjorie Prime, Zayd Dohrn for The Profane,  Lauren Yee for Cambodian Rock Band, Jaclyn Backhaus for India Pale Ale, Lloyd Suh for The Chinese Lady, and Christina Anderson for the ripple, the wave that carried me home.
The Prize is founded and funded by the Greg and Mari Marchbanks Family Foundation of Austin, Texas.