NEW YORK CITY: Acclaimed playwright, director and actor Danny Hoch will receive the Downtown Urban Theater Festival Playwright Masters Award at the festival’s opening night event, May 12. Hoch has garnered 2 Obies, an NEA Solo Theatre Fellowship, a Sundance Writers Fellowship, a CalArts/Alpert Award in Theatre and a Tennessee Williams Fellowship for his plays Jails, Hospitals and Hip-Hop, Pot Melting and Some People. Hoch, who founded the Hip-Hop Theatre Festival, recently contributed a piece on Hamilton to American Theatre,
The DUTF Playwright Masters Award is awarded to a writer that embodies the spirit of the Downtown Urban Theater Festival. The festival was founded in 2001 with the purpose, according to a statement, of “building a fresh repertoire of stories that echo the true spirit of urban life, while speaking to a whole new generation whose lives defy categorizing along conventional lines.” Previous honorees include Nilo Cruz (Anna in the Tropics) and Adrienne Kennedy (Funnyhouse of a Negro).
The Downtown Urban Theater Festival, which runs May 13–30 at HERE Arts Center in Manhttan, will feature these 17 new works:
- Bed Bugs and Hot Pockets by Shonali Bhowmilk
- Between a Hot Dog and a Hard Place by Mel Nieves
- Blackout 03 by Kate Bell
- Black Sheep by Darian Dauchan
- Changing Tables by Kacie Devaney
- Distortive Ascent by Nikolai Mishler
- Hypocrites & Strippers by Kim Yaged
- For the Flies by Camilo Almonacid
- Good Morning for Coffee by Daphny Maman and Sujin Kim
- La Bestia: Sweet Mother by Tom Block
- Outside the Box by Irene Hernandez
- Run. Hide. Be Quiet. by Shyla Idris
- Say Something by Dominique Miller
- Shenanigans by Helena D. Lewis
- Spades by J.E. Robinson
- Stigma by Keelay Gipson
- Supermen by Adam Esquenazi Douglas
DUFT was founded in 2002 in an effort to revitalize the arts scene in downtown Manhattan following the events of September 11th. Since its conception, the festival of theatre, music, dance and media has produced 147 plays and featured 119 multicultural artists.
