NEW YORK CITY: The Dramatists Guild of America has named James Anthony Tyler as the recipient of the 2018 Horton Foote Playwriting Award. Tyler will receive a $25,000 cash prize, sponsored by the Richenthal Foundation, at the Dramatists Guild 2018 awards presentation. This year’s finalist is Fernanda Coppel.
Established in 2016, the award recognizes a playwright whose work explores the nature of being human. The award is named in honor of the playwright Horton Foote, who died in 2009. Previous winners in Stephen Karam and Rajiv Joseph.
Tyler’s plays include Some Old Black Man (Berkshire Playwrights Lab), Dolphins and Sharks (LAByrinth Theater Company), and Artney Jackson (The New Black Fest). Some Old Black Man will premiere at 59E59 (Feb. 8–March 4). Tyler was a 2014-15 Dramatists Guild Fellow, a Playwrights’ Center Many Voices Fellow, and was part of Working Farm Writers Group Residency at Space on Ryder Farm. He is the recipient of the Theatre Masters Visionary Playwrights Award. He holds an MFA from Howard University and New York University, and is a graduate of Juilliard.
Coppel’s play King Liz received its world premiere at Second Stage Theatre and is being developed for Showtime. Other plays include Chimichangas and Zoloft, which premiered at Atlantic Theater Company. She received the Asuncion Queer Latino Festival at Pregones Theater, the HOLA Award for Outstanding Achievement in Playwriting, and the Helen Merrill Award. She was a Playwriting Fellow at Juilliard and received her MFA from New York University.
