Chicago Dramatists is proud to announce that Resident Playwright Marisa Wegrzyn has won the 2009 Wendy Wasserstein Prize. Following in the footsteps of Chicago Dramatists Resident Playwright Laura Jacqmin, last year's winner, Wegrzyn is being honored with the third annual Wasserstein Prize and will head to New York City to collect the award, which comes with a $25,000 check, on Dec. 1st. The Wasserstein Prize is given to encourage the work of a young, woman playwright by the Educational Foundation of America and the Dramatists Guild of America in honor of the late Pulitzer and Tony Award-winning playwright, Wendy Wasserstein.
Wegryzn's play being honored is "Hickorydickory," a piece that explores what would happen if we all had an internal clock telling us the time of our death. As part of her award, the play gets a staged reading at Second Stage in New York. "Hickorydickory" was developed in part at Chicago Dramatists, where it received a staged reading at the theatre's Saturday Series in July, 2009. Chicago Dramatists produced the world premiere of Wegryzn's southern gothic drama "Ten Cent Night" last fall.
This special recognition follows the recent success of the smash hit production of A Steady Rain by Chicago Dramatists Resident Playwright Huff which opened in New York starring Daniel Craig and Hugh Jackman in September. In addition, Chicago Dramatistsis celebrating two of its Resident Playwrights who recently received multiple nominations from the 2008-2009 LA Stage Alliance Ovation Awards, the honor of the TCG New Generations/Future Leaders grant, the announcement of four new resident playwrights,as well as a new associate artistic director. Chicago Dramatists was also selected as only one of four theatres to be included as part of the inaugural Millennium Park "In The Works" Theatre Lab Project this spring. Last month, Raymond Gaspard, one of the producers of A Steady Rain, optioned Liquid Moon by John Green (a 2002 Chicago Dramatists production), and is developing the script for a New York production. This series of great newshas given Chicago Dramatists the opportunity to grow its organization and shine the spotlight on its talented playwrights.
Chicago Dramatists has been selected for these unique opportunities due in part to being the only theatre in the country that is both a playwrights' development center and a full producing theatre which continues to push the envelope with the newest plays and most promising playwrights. Through its long-standing Residency program, Chicago Dramatists seeks to nurture accomplished, Chicago-based dramatists who show the potential to make significant contributions to the national theatre.