NEW YORK CITY: Theatre Communications Group (TCG) has announced the second round of 2021-22 Edgerton Foundation New Play Awards. The $731,000 in awards will provide creative teams extra development and rehearsal time for 16 world-premiere productions, with the hopes of extending the lives of these new plays beyond their first run. The winning productions include Darlin’ Cory, WILD: A Musical Becoming, Change Agent, American Prophet, The High Ground, English, This Much I Know, Goddess, In the Upper Room, Georgina and Kitty: Christmas at Pemberley, Manor, Middle, The Father and the Assassin, Camp Siegfried, The Mirror and The Light, and In Every Generation. This is the second iteration of New Play Awards presented after most theatres’ seasons were canceled by the COVID-19 pandemic.
“As our theatre field emerges from the impacts of the Omicron variant, the Edgerton Foundation’s transformational investment in new plays continues to provide inspiration and badly needed material support,” said TCG executive director Teresa Eyring in a statement. “The foundation’s support of longer rehearsal processes has always been valuable, but now, as our field reopens with a focus on safety and inclusion, that support is truly life-giving. Theatre artists will have a chance to breathe, and to take the time they need after the losses of last year as they make the plays that will knit our country back together.”
The Edgerton Foundation has awarded more than $15,116,000 to 474 productions over the last 16 years. Thirty Edgerton recipients have gone on to Broadway, 16 have received Tony nominations, and five have won best play or musical awards. Eleven Edgerton recipients were nominated for the Pulitzer Prize for Drama, and six have won the honor.
The Edgerton Foundation New Plays Program was piloted in 2006 with two musicals in development at Center Theatre Group in Los Angeles, offering an extended rehearsal period for the entire creative team. With the national launch of the program in 2007, directors Brad and Louise Edgerton have supported 474 plays at over 50 different theatres across the country.
Theatre Communications Group, the national organization for theatre, strives to lead for a just and thriving theatre ecology. With a network of more than 700 member theatres, over 250 university, funder, trustee, and business affiliates, and over 7,000 individuals, TCG’s programming reaches over a million students, audience members, and theatre professionals each year. TCG is the publisher of American Theatre.
