Member Awards

Tammy Ryan won the 2012 Francesca Primus Prize for her play Lost Boy Found In Whole Foods.  Jointly sponsored by the American Theater Critics Association and the Francesca Ronnie Primus Foundation the prize is given annually to an emerging woman theater artist. 

Lost Boy Found in Whole Foods was developed at the 2009 New Harmony Project, won the Premiere Stages Play Festival, workshopped at the Playwrights Theater of New Jersey and the Lark Play Development Center.  Premiere Stages and Playwrights Theater of New Jersey co produced the world premiere in 2010.  The Rep, the professional company at the oint Park University Pittsburgh Playhouse staged a production that garnered critical praise and sold out its entire run.

Ryan was selected from 22 contenders by a nationwide committee of critics.   The committee announced an additional commendation to playwright Dominique Morisseau for her play Follow Me to Nellies which premiered at Premiere Stages in 2011.

Recent previous Primus winners include: Caridad Svitch 2011, Michelle Lowe 2010, Jamie Pachino 2009 and E.M. Lewis 2008

Tammy Ryan Profile

Robin Rice Lichtig's full-length play ALICE IN BLACK AND WHITE won the StageWrite Women's Theatre Initiative Award at the Great Plains Theatre Conference in June. 

Patricia Milton's economic comedy, "Reduction in Force," which premiered in July 2011 at Central Works Theatre, Berkeley, CA, has been voted "Best Local Play" in the 2011 SF Bay Area Broadway World Theatre Awards.

The production also secured Best Director (Gary Graves), Best Featured Actress (Jan Zvaifler) and Best Sound Designer (Greg Scharpen) in this "people's choice"-type awards competition.

More about "Reduction in Force" here.

Linda Evans' 10 Minute play, TAR BARBIE, was read in the Theatre Lab at the Kennedy Center, Washington D.C

TAR BARBIE

2 Females, 20's

BABS, white, Debutante hooked on tar heroin

DIPTI- from India UK English Indian accent

SETTING: inner city, gutted out building

contact: LINDAEVANS1@aol.com

Linda Evans' screenplays and plays including production pictures and programs are now archived at the Ohio State University’s Department of Theatre and Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee Theatre Research Institute. The Institute is now housed in the Thompson (Main) Library in the Special Collections section.

Sponsored by the University of Alabama, Birmingham, the Apsey Award is given for a play about race or ethnicity that has meaty roles for student actors and new insights into the subject.

Monica Raymond's winning play, A TO Z follows the uneasy and interrupted friendship of two women, Annie (white) and Zafiya (black) through forty years of US history (1968-2008) and all of the letters of the alphabet. Raymond began and workshopped A TO Z during her tenure as a Jerome Fellow at the Playwrights' Center.

WINNERS ANNOUNCED IN HECKART SENIOR THEATRE COMPETITION

Results of the 2009 Eileen Heckart Drama for Seniors Competition were announced today by Ohio State University’s Department of Theatre and Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee Theatre Research Institute. The contest, named in memory of Ohio State alumna and Central Ohio native Eileen Heckart, attracted more than five hundred entries this year, in three categories: ten-minute plays, one acts plays, and full length plays.

And the winners are:

Ten-Minute: Mary Steelsmith (Los Angeles, California) Happy and Gay

One act: Katherine DuBois (Boulder, Colorado) Volunteer Work

Full-length: Donna Spector (Warwick, New York) Not For the Ferryman

Finalists in each category include:

First runners-up:

Ten-Minute: Toby Armour (East Haven, Connecticut) Lifer

One act: Richard Conlon (St. Charles, Illinois) send forth they mercies

Full-length: R. Lawrence Sifford (Washington, D.C.) Murder in a Nursing Home

Second runners-up:

Ten-Minute: Stephanie Allison Walker (Los Angeles, California) Melt

One act: Tevia E. Abrams (New York, New York) Marge and Jack

Full-length (tie): Elizabeth Orndorff (Danville, Kentucky) Aidan’s Gift

Lans Taverse (London, England) Coleslaw and Coconut Cream Pie

Other finalists included

Ten-Minute: Damon Chua (Los Angeles, California) Dogs Are Evil

Douglas Stewart (Santa Fe, New Mexico) Never Mind

One act: Steven Shutzman (Baltimore, Maryland)Tammy

Rosemary Frisino Toohey (Baltimore, Maryland) Tilapia

Full-length: Paul Elliott (Los Angeles, California) Exit Laughing

The Eileen Heckart Drama for Seniors Competition honors Eileen Heckart (1919-2001), the distinguished American actress whose long career culminated in her stunning performance in Kenneth Lonergan=s The Waverly Gallery (2000), for which she received the Drama Desk Award, Obie Award, and Outer Critics Circle Award. That same year she was awarded the Tony for lifetime achievement. She also was the recipient of an Academy Award (Butterflies Are Free), Golden Globe (The Bad Seed) and an Emmy (Save Me A Place at Forest Lawn). She was recognized with a Margo Jones Medal in 2000 for her long championing of new plays, having appeared in almost thirty world premiere productions. Ms. Heckart was a native of Bexley, Ohio, and an alumna of The Ohio State University.

Winning plays, and first-runners-up, will receive staged readings at The Ohio State University during the 2009-2010 academic year.

Further information: 614/292-8238 (voice), 614/292-3222 (FAX), woods.1@osu.edu; www.heckartdrama.blogspot.com

Alan Woods, Coordinator
The Eileen Heckart Drama for Seniors Competition
The Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee Theatre Research Institute
The Ohio State University
119 Thompson Library 1658 Neil Ave. Mall
Columbus, OH 43210
614 292-8232 office 614 292-3222 fax 614 371-4125 viator
woods.1@osu.edu

In March 2011, Carolyn will be a writer-in-residence at the Ragdale Foundation in Lake Forest, IL.  Ragdale is an artists' retreat supported by the National Endowment for the Arts.

Donna Spector's play NOT FOR THE FERRYMAN won first place in the Eileen Heckart Senior Drama Award competition.

1990 - 2ND Prize of the National Monologue Contest celebrated in Tomelloso, Spain, for the presentation of her own adaptation of Jean Rhys' "Let them Call it Jazz" as a one woman show. Played by her and directed by Carlos Toquero.

1999 - Margarita Mendoza Award to a Grant by CITRU (Centro de Investiagción Teatral Rodolfo Usigli), a branch of Mexico´s Instituto Nacional de Bellas Artes for Professional Research on Theatre Arts, for her project "Nowadays Theatre in Indigenous Languages in the State of Puebla, Mexico" which gave birth to ther published book "El Teatro Poblano Autóctono:Identidad contra Esperpento"

2003 - Scholarship from Michal Howard Studios in New York to attend their Summer Intensive Course for Professional Actors.

2004 - Raymond J. Flores Award in NY for her one act "Lo Mein and Tequila"

2008 - Finalist Mention to the 14th April Award for Theatre about Historical Memory given by the Democratic Memorial of the Generaliutat de Cataluña, Barcelona, for her play in two acts "El Cobert" (The Junk Room), which gave origin to the publication of the play in 2009 by Arola Editors.