The Harold and Mimi Steinberg Charitable Trust Will Honor Martyna Majok and Mona Mansour With 2023 Steinberg Playwright Awards

The Harold and Mimi Steinberg Charitable Trust announced the names of the two outstanding early-to-mid-career playwrights who will be celebrated with 2023 Steinberg Playwright Awards in the amount of $100,000 each.  This year's recipients of the “Mimi” Awards are Martyna Majok and Mona Mansour. 

The “Mimi” Awards are presented annually to playwrights in early and middle stages of their careers who have distinctive and compelling voices, and whose work exhibits exceptional talent and artistic excellence. The awards celebrate their accomplishments and honor the promise they hold for the future of American theater.  During the pandemic, the Trust temporarily restructured the awards to reach a greater number of writers, given the impact of the pandemic on playwrights throughout the industry.  In 2022, the Trust returned to the origins of the award by honoring two early-to-mid-career playwrights with an increased monetary prize in acknowledgment of the challenging times facing artists post-pandemic.   

 

"This honor is genuinely life-changing.  I'm grateful beyond measure for the artistic possibilities this award gifts me and the drive it's strengthened in me to continue telling stories.  To be included in this extraordinary company of inspiring playwrights, these great creators of the American Theatre, is overwhelmingly humbling,” said Martyna Majok. “Thank you with all my heart to the Steinberg Charitable Trust for their incredible commitment to our art form — and for their immensely generous belief in me. I'm still reeling and occasionally weeping with gratitude."  

 

“It's with enormous gratitude that I thank the Steinberg Trust for this honor they've granted me for my work,” said Mona Mansour.  “In the midst of a highly unstable time in theater, this award comes as an enormous gift. I'm deeply grateful to the selection committee for giving me the chance to continue to dream up worlds, to follow my curiosity wherever it takes me — to the Middle East and beyond.  It's an honor to join the esteemed list of diverse and talented artists who've received this award.”   

 

“Both of this year's recipients mirror a ferocity of intellect and an exceptional gift of revealing the depth and resilience of our humanity against all crushing odds of circumstance and society.  I cannot imagine two more important voices than Mona Mansour and Martyna Majok in our canon, writing to meet this moment of heartbreak, war, and loss in our world with an unassailable reminder of capacity connection, healing, and truth,” said Advisory Committee Member Hana S. Sharif.  

 

 

 

“Mona Mansour tackles some of the toughest issues on the planet - not least the Palestine/Israel conflict- with tremendous empathy, gorgeous language, deep compassion, and nuanced insights.  Her integrity is deeply impressive, and her achievements striking,” said Advisory Committee MemberOskar Eustis. “Martyna Majok is an utterly unique voice.  An immigrant from Eastern Europe, she creates characters who struggle to do right, despite enormous deprivations: financial, educational, and cultural.  She ennobles people whom society marginalizes, restoring agency and heroic status to all.  Her plays are intimate but epic, tremendously granular about human behavior, while linking that behavior to the deepest human dilemmas.  She is one of our greats.”  

 

“It is our distinct honor to recognize the outstanding work of Martyna and Mona.  As we continue to navigate the uncharted landscape of the past few years, we continue to stay true to the Steinberg Playwright Award mission of investing in our writers.  Now more than ever, it is essential to shine a spotlight on their artistry.  We celebrate their work and look forward to the stories they have yet to tell,” said Steinberg Trustee Jim Steinberg. 

 

“In such difficult and challenging times for the world at large and the American Theater, the Steinberg Playwright Award is nothing short of being a beacon of hope,” said Advisory Committee Member Snehal Desai. “In times of great change, it is critical that we are supporting and uplifting brave, visionary voices that through their work seek to bridge divides and inspire hope and healing.  Thank you to the Steinberg Trust, and Trustees in particular, for being so responsive in recent years to the needs of artists.  In doing so they have ensured that this award is one of the most impactful and transformative in our field.” 

 

In 2008, the Trustees created an advisory committee of seven prominent theater professionals to establish the awards criteria, nominate individual candidates, and select recipients.  The 2023 Advisory Committee is comprised of Jeremy B. Cohen, Producing Artistic Director, The Playwrights' Center; Snehal Desai, Artistic Director, Center Theatre Group; Oskar Eustis, Artistic Director, The Public Theater; Maria Manuela Goyanes, Artistic Director, Woolly Mammoth Theatre Co.; Sarah Lunnie, Dramaturg; Neil Pepe, Artistic Director, Atlantic Theater Company; and Hana S. Sharif, Artistic Director, Arena Stage.  

 

The Board of Trustees of The Harold and Mimi Steinberg Charitable Trust is made up of Susan Frunzi, Carole Krumland, James Steinberg, Michael Steinberg, Seth Weingarten, and William Zabel. 

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