NEW YORK CITY: The Dramatists Guild Foundation (DGF) has announced multifaceted artist Zeniba Now as the recipient of the 2023 Thom Thomas Award, given annually to an alumnus of the DGF Fellows program who demonstrates great artistic skill.
Since 2016, DGF has bestowed this award to commemorate playwright Thom Thomas’s endless passion for nurturing the next generation of dramatists and his appreciation of DGF’s support of writers. The Award grants the recipient $10,000 to use towards livelihood expenses, project expenses, travel expenses—anything that will support their ability to create their best work.
“Winning this award is an utter delight and a deeply meaningful shift toward prosperity for me,” said Zeniba Now in a statement. “Being a former DGF Fellow, I truly know how marvelously talented the pool of applicants is, and I am honored to be this year’s selection. Generous gifts, prizes, and awards are the foundation of my artistic sustainability and I am touched that my work connected with the panelists.”
Zeniba Now is a musical storyteller and artscientist from Los Angeles who makes work to inspire magic and possibility in human consciousness. Her work as a writer includes the shorts Beloved; To Be on Hold Forever, part of Human Resources at St. Louis Rep and Woolly Mammoth; and The Nap Anthem. Her full-length works include The Loophoole at the Public Theater and the forthcoming Take the Lead. Her one-woman specials iQuit: Millennial Retirement Gala and Sincerely, Z can be seen on TikTok and YouTube. Previous awards include the 2020 Richard Rodgers Award, the 2021 Vivace Award, and the 2021 Jonathan Larson Grant.
The Thom Thomas Award is made possible through the generous support of Thomas’s longtime friends and colleagues Iris Rainer Dart and Helen Lee Henderson.
“Thom was a thoughtful, gifted man and writer and my close friend for sixty years,” Rainer Dart said in a statement. “I am proud to have been one of the founders of this award and moved by the legacy he left behind. Thom wanted to give young writers the breathing room and the time to create. Thanks to this award, they will have some measure of both.”
Past recipients iclude Avi Amon (2021); Erika Dickerson-Despenza, Julia Meinwald, and Benjamin Velez (2020); Riti Sachdeva (2019); Stefanie Zadravec (2018); Sylvan Oswald (2017); and Chisa Hutchinson (2016).
