NEW YORK CITY: Theatre Communications Group (TCG) has announced the recipients of the second round of the 2017 Edgerton Foundation New Play Awards. The awards, totaling $1,051,000, allow 27 productions extra time for the development and rehearsal of new plays with the entire creative team. The awards aim to extend the life of new plays after their world premiere productions.
“If you weren’t sure about whether we were in a golden age for playwriting, this round of Edgerton Foundation recipients should confirm it,” said Teresa Eyring, executive director of TCG, in a statement. “By supporting the initial rehearsal process for these plays, the Edgerton Foundation propels these works to future productions and inclusion in our ever-expanding theatrical canon.”
The recipients for the second round of the 2017 Foundation New Play Awards were presented to Describe the Night by Rajiv Joseph and Cleo by Lawrence Wright, both at the Alley Theatre in Houston; Snow Child, book by John Strand, music by Bob Banghart, and music and lyrics by Georgia Stitt, at Washington, D.C.’s Arena Stage; Magellanica by E.M. Lewis at Artists Repertory Theatre in Portland, Ore.*; The Trials of Sam Houston by Aaron Loeb at Dallas Theater Center; American Mariachi by José Cruz González and Great Leap by Lauren Yee, both at Denver Center for the Performing Arts; Chasing Mem’ries: A Different Kind of Musical by Josh Ravetch, lyrics by Alan Bergman and Marilyn Bergman, music by Bill Cantos and Mari Falcone, Dave Grusin, Marvin Hamlisch, Michel Legrand, and Johnny Mandel, at Los Angeles’s Geffen Playhouse; Blind Date by Rogelio Martinez and Support Group for Men by Ellen Fairey, both at Chicago’s Goodman Theatre; Seder by Sarah Gancher at Connecticut’s Hartford Stage; Fall by Bernard Weinraub at Boston’s Huntington Theatre Company; Summer: The Donna Summer Musical, book by Colman Domingo, Robert Cary, and Des McAnuff, at San Diego’s La Jolla Playhouse; Admissions by Joshua Harmon at New York City’s Lincoln Center Theater; The Portuguese Kid by John Patrick Shanley at Manhattan Theatre Club; Transfers by Lucy Thurber at NYC’s MCC Theater; One House Over by Catherine Trieschmann at Milwaukee Repertory Theater; Saint George and the Dragon by Rory Mullarkey at London’s National Theatre; Issei, He Say (Or The Myth of the First) by Chloé Hung at New Jersey Repertory Company; Manahatta by Mary Kathryn Nagle and The Way the Mountain Moved by Idris Goodwin, both at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival; Sex and Other Disturbances by Marisa Smith at Maine’s Portland Stage Company; Ibsen in Chicago by David Grimm at Seattle Repertory Theatre; Cambodian Rock Band by Lauren Yee at California’s South Coast Repertory; Doing It by Boo Killebrew at Chicago’s Victory Gardens Theater; The Beast in the Jungle, music by John Kander and book by David Thompson at the Vineyard Theatre in NYC; and Bread by Regina Taylor at Texas’s WaterTower Theatre.
Directed by Brad and Louise Edgerton, the Edgerton Foundation New Plays Program was piloted in 2006 offering two musicals in development at the Center Theater Group an extended rehearsal period for the creative team and playwrights. The program was launched nationally in 2007, and has supported 375 plays to date at more than 50 different theatres across the country.
*A previous version of this story misidentified the theatre that will be developing Magellanica.
