Portland Stage Announces Winners Of The 2022 Clauder Competition for New England Playwrights

Portland Stage has announced the winners of the 2022 Clauder Competition for New England Playwrights. Grand Prize Winner Benjamin Benne and Gold Prize Winner Mallory Jane Weiss will have their plays workshopped in Portland Stage's upcoming Little Festival of the Unexpected.

Selected from over 170 plays penned by playwrights from all over our region, Portland Stage is excited to present workshops of two new plays from New England Writers in the coming weeks. "Both of these plays are fascinating and hold a hint of magic," says Todd Brian Backus, Literary Manager of Portland Stage, "They offer exciting lenses into the modern American moment: asking questions about grief, masculinity, and what it means to be a woman."

Backus continues, "One of the most exciting parts of my job is adjudicating the Clauder Competition. We give feedback to each and every writer who submits to the competition and then we workshop our favorite plays. In the following season we go on to a full production of the grand prize winner. Getting to work with a playwright as they nurture their work through readings, to workshops, to a world premiere production is really why I'm in this business to begin with. Getting to be a part of that journey."

THE CLAUDER COMPETITION For over four decades, the Clauder Competition has been New England's most prestigious playwriting award. Created in 1981 by Jeb Brooks, who continues to underwrite the program, the Clauder Competition celebrates the distinctive voices of our region's playwrights and brings their work to the attention of the greater theatrical community every other year.

GRAND PRIZE WINNER

MANNING by Benjamin Benne

Connecticut State Winner. After the death of his mother, Freddy and his father, Julio, spread her ashes in the garden, and a giant zucchini (that seems to have a heartbeat) sprouts overnight. Freddy calls his older brother Sebastian home to witness the vegetable, and also help take care of their father Julio, who seems to have lost the will to live. Sebastian brings his recently bonded red tailed hawk along and the two brothers try their best to coax their father out of his room. Can all three men develop a communal vocabulary to express their grief with each other?

Manning will be mounted as Mainstage Season Production in 2024.

Benjamin Benne (Playwright, he/him) is a Playwrights' Center Affiliated Writer, American Blues Theater Blue Ink Playwriting Award winner, Arizona Theatre Company National Latinx Playwriting Award winner, KCACTF Latinx Playwriting Award winner, and was recently named part of "LA Vanguardia: The Latino innovators, investigators and power players breaking through barriers" by the Los Angeles Times. His plays include ALMA (World Premiere '22: Center Theatre Group's Kirk Douglas Theatre in Los Angeles & American Blues Theater in Chicago; Seattle Premiere '22: ArtsWest Playhouse; Regional Premiere '23: Curious Theatre Company in Denver; Central Square Theater in Cambridge MA), IN HIS HANDS (World Premiere '22: Mosaic Theater Company of DC), and WHAT/ WASHED ASHORE / ASTRAY (World Premiere '23: Pillsbury House + Theatre in Minneapolis). He is a current member of Primary Stage's Dorothy Strelsin New American Writers Group and has been commissioned by South Coast Repertory and Seattle Repertory. MFA: David Geffen/Yale School of Drama '22. www.benjaminbenne.com

GOLD PRIZE WINNER

THE PAGE TURNERS by Mallory Jane Weiss

In a fictitious-kind-of-1844-or-so, four somewhat-Victorian women, Kipper, Mary, Sadie, and Alice are "The Page Turners," a book club determined to redeem themselves after their disgraceful showing at last year's Book Club Conference. But being a woman who reads is not a simple life; and over the course of the year, they maneuver questions of guilt, motherhood, self, and, of course, propriety. THE PAGE TURNERS questions how to shape our identities as women not by society's rules but rather by the women we surround ourselves with, the choices that we make, and the books that we read.

Mallory Jane Weiss (Playwright)'s plays include BIG BLACK SUNHATS (Great Plains Theatre Commons New Play Conference 2023; The O'Neill National Playwrights Conference 2022; Clubbed Thumb Biennial Commission finalist 2020), LIGHTS OUT AND AWAY WE GO (Clubbed Thumb reading 2022), THE PAGE TURNERS (Clauder Competition Gold Prize 2023; Princess Grace Award semi-finalist 2022; The O'Neill NPC finalist 2021), PONY UP (Princess Grace Award Finalist, 2019), and DAVE AND JULIA ARE STUCK IN A TREE (Playing on Air's James Stevenson Prize 2020). Mallory is an alumna of Clubbed Thumb's Early Career Writers' Group (2021-2022), The COOP's Clusterf**k (2021), Gingold Theatrical Group's Speakers Corner (2018-2019), and Fresh Ground Pepper's BRB Retreat (2019). B.A.: Harvard University, M.F.A.: The New School. www.malloryjaneweiss.com

SPECIAL COMMENDATION

This year a.k. payne's love i awethu further stood out to us as an excellent entry and we have honored that play with a cash prize and a special commendation.

STATE WINNERS

Connecticut - MANNING by Benjamin Benne

Maine - IN THE END WE ALL GO TO PROVIDENCE by Julia Jennings

Massachusetts - I LOVE YOU Elizabeth Warren by Laura Neill

New Hampshire - QUIETUS by Richard Manley

Rhode Island - THE HANDLESS KING by Elias Harley

Vermont - PROVENENCE by Todd Cerveris

MANNING and THE PAGE TURNERS will both be workshopped and given in-person staged readings in the 2023 Little Festival of the Unexpected.

Since its debut in 1990, the Little Festival of the Unexpected (LFU) has established a tradition of nurturing artists, invigorating audiences, and exploring new voices, visions, and forms of theater. The festival furnishes a supportive environment for playwrights to develop their work, as well as a unique opportunity for audiences to catch a firsthand look at the creative process that brings scripts to the stage. LFU readings are performed by a company of professional actors, and are followed by an open discussion with the audience, director, and playwright.

The 2023 Little Festival of the Unexpected will return to in-person performances after three years of zoom readings. Following each performance will be a talkback with the writer, director, and cast of the show.

THE PAGE TURNERS by Mallory Jane Weiss

Friday, April 21st at 7pm

Portland Stage Studio Theater

MANNING by Benjamin Benne

Friday, April 28th at 7pm

Portland Stage Storefront Theater

For these benefit readings tickets are available now for $13 in advance, and Pay-What-You-Can day of at the door.

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