NEW YORK CITY: The Dramatists Guild of America has named Michael R. Jackson the recipient of the 2019 Hull-Warriner Award for his musical A Strange Loop. This year’s finalists included Madeleine George for Hurricane Diane; Stephen Adly Guirgis for Halfway Bitches Go Straight to Heaven; Samuel D. Hunter for Greater Clements; Donja R. Love for one in two; and Jackie Sibblies Drury for Marys Seacole.
Established in 1971, the Hull-Warriner Award is the only award given by playwrights to playwrights and is presented annually to an American author or authors selected by the Dramatists Guild of America Council. The award, named after the late playwright Elizabeth Hull, recognizes a work that deals with social, political, or religious mores of the time.
Jackson holds a BFA and MFA in playwriting and musical theatre writing from the NYU Tisch School of the Arts. As a songwriter, he has seen his work performed everywhere from Joe’s Pub to NAMT. He wrote the book, music, and lyrics for the musical A Strange Loop, winner of the 2020 Pulitzer Prize in Drama and the New York Drama Critics Circle Award for Best Musical. He also wrote the book, music, and lyrics for the upcoming White Girl in Danger; and lyrics and book for the musical adaptation of the 2007 horror film Teeth with composer and co-book writer Anna K. Jacobs. Awards and associations include: a New Professional Theatre Festival Award, a Jonathan Larson Grant, a Lincoln Center Emerging Artist Award, an ASCAP Foundation Harold Adamson Award, a Whiting Award, the Helen Merrill Award for Playwriting, a Dramatists Guild Foundation Fellowship, and he is an alum of Page 73’s Interstate Writers Group. Jackson has commissions from Grove Entertainment & Barbara Whitman Productions and LCT3 and is a newly-elected member of the Dramatists Guild Council.
