NEW YORK CITY: The American Playwriting Foundation has awarded the 2016 Relentless Award to Aleshea Harris for her play Is God Is. The award, established in honor of Philip Seymour Hoffman, includes a $45,000 cash prize and a series of national staged readings. Harris will also have the option to have her work published by Dramatists Play Service. She will also have a week-long residency with a cast and director at SPACE on Ryder Farm.
Harris’s play was chosen from more than 2,000 submissions. This year’s selection committee included Eric Bogosian, Thomas Bradshaw, David Bar Katz, Lynn Nottage, John Ortiz, Jonathan Marc Sherman, and Lucy Thurber.
Is God Is explores mortality, patricide, familial dysfunction, and the perilous landscape of orphaned black girl/womanhood. The Ed Vassallo Relentless Reading Series will begin in New York City at the New Group. Other participating theatres include the American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco; Asolo Repertory Theater in Sarasota, Fla.; Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park; the Goodman Theatre in Chicago; Huntington Theatre Company in Boston; Wilma Theater in Philadelphia; Milwaukee Repertory Theater, and Williamstown Theater Festival in Williamstown, Mass.
