New York Playwright Allston James Wins 2015 British Theatre Challenge with SURIBACHI

SURIBACHI, a play by American playwright Allston James, has won the 4th Annual British Theatre Challenge's Audience Appreciation Award. The international competition, with over 250 entrants, is produced by Sky Blue Theatre (UK).

SURIBACHI was chosen from among ten winning finalists by audience vote. All finalists received full productions at The Lost Theatre in London on October 23 & 24. SURIBACHI's award carries a cash prize.

SURIBACHI, which earlier this year won the 2015 U.S. Marine Corps Heritage Foundation Bill Broyles Award for Distinguished Play or Screenplay, concerns an encounter between two former Marines-one WWII, the other just back from Vietnam-in a rural bus station in 1967 America.

"All soldiers, regardless of specific conflict, are like souls returning from a distant solar system," James says. "Finding their footing on uncertain home turf is always going to be tentative."

Allston James is a U.S. Army veteran who served as an artillery forward observer during the Vietnam war. He traveled to London to see the SURIBACHI production, co-directed by Anne Bartram and John Mitten. The all-British cast was comprised of Antonia Bourdillon, Simon Fox, and Simao Ramos.