The Kennedy Center

KENNEDY CENTER SUMMER INTENSIVES
PLAYWRITING July 8-21, 2007Led by Gary Garrison, Executive Director for Creative Affairs, The Dramatists Guild

Tuition		The Director
Housing		Lorraine Hansbury Playwriting Award
Application Process		Lorraine Hansbury Award Winners

A two-week playwriting intensive at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts geared towards university students, faculty and young professionals from across the country. The program consists of writing workshops and discussions of the business of playwriting with the Program's Director,Gary Garrison and a wide range of distinguished guest artists. Some of Washington D.C.'s leading playwrights, dramaturgs, literary managers, artistic directors and producers will provide one-on-one response sessions to the participants' work. Classes will meet 9:30am–noon, 1-6pm daily. Informal concertreadings of participants' work will be scheduled, in the evening, during the two-week period. Sunday, July 15th is free.

In addition, Masters Classes will be given by the following individuals:

Melanie Marnich Dael Orlandersmith Cathy Norgren Howard Shalwitz	Caleen Sinnette Jennings Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa Steven Dietz and others....

Tuition:

$900 for the general public
$850 for faculty or students from KCACTF participating institutions
$800 for faculty and students whose home institutions are offering scholarship or professional development support for this opportunity

Housing:

Housing information will be available inthe early spring. Prices start at $40 per night.

To Apply:

a writing and/or teaching resume
a brief statement of motivation for attending
ten pages of a playwriting sample

Applications are due by Friday, March 30th. Invited participants will be notified by April 27th.
(Early submission and acceptance notification may be possible if applicants' home institutions have earlier professional development funding deadlines. Please inquire.)

Send attached Microsoft Word or PDF documents to ghenry@kennedy-center.org

Or to the following address:
KCACTF Playwriting
The Kennedy Center
PO Box 101510
Arlington, VA 22210

The Director

GARY GARRISON was recently appointed Executive Director of the Dramatist Guild of America – the national organization of playwrights, lyricists and composers. For the past ten years he has filled the posts of Artistic Director, Producer and full‑time faculty member in the Department of Dramatic Writing at NYU's Tisch School of the Arts. He has produced the last eighteen Festivals of New Works for NYU, working with hundreds of playwrights, directors and actors. Garrison's plays include Storm on Storm, It Belongs on Stage (and Not in My Bed), Crater, Old Soles, Padding The Wagon, Rug Store Cowboy, Cherry Reds, Gawk, Oh Messiah Me, We Make A Wall , The Big Fat Naked Truth, Scream With Laughter, Smoothness With Cool , Empty Rooms, Does Anybody Want A Miss Cow Bayou? and When A Diva Dreams. This work has been featured at Primary Stages, The Directors Company, Manhattan Theatre Source, StageWorks, Fourth Unity, Open Door Theatre, African Globe Theatre Company, Pulse Ensemble Theatre, Expanded Arts and New York Rep. He is the author of the critically acclaimed, The Playwright's Survival Guide: Keeping the Drama in Your Work and Out of Your Life, Perfect Ten: Writing and Producing the Ten‑Minute Play, two volumes of Monologues for Men by Men (all Heinemann Press), and the KCACTF's Best Student Plays of 2006 . He is a the programdirector for the Summer Playwriting Intensive for the Kennedy Center, the former National Chair of Playwriting for the Kennedy Center's American College Theater Festival and recipient of the Outstanding Teacher of Playwriting from the Association of Theatre in Higher Education.

Marsha Norman: The Color Purple, 'Night Mother (Pulitzer Prize), The Secret Garden (Tony Award), Getting Out, Trudy Blue, Last Dance

Melanie Marnich: Cradle of Man, Tallgrass Gothic, Blur, Quake, The Sparrow Project

Mark Bly: Senior Dramaturg, Arena Stage

Cathy Norgren: Associate Director of the Playwriting Intensive, Costume Designer: Actors Theatre of Louisville, Cleveland Playhouse, The Kennedy Center...

Dael Orlandersmith: Yellowman, The Gimmick, Beauty's Daughter, Monster

Howard Shalwitz: Artistic Director, Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company

Steven Dietz: God's Country, Lonely Planet, Private Eyes, Fiction, Inventing Van Gogh

Lee Blessing: Going to St. Ives, Eleemosynary, A Walk in the Woods, Fortinbras, A Body of Water, The Scottish Play...

Caleen Sinnette Jennings: Classyass, Inns and Outs, Rainy Season, Casting Othello-Playing Juliet

Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa: Based on a Totally True Story, The Mystery Plays, Velvet Sky, Rough Magic, The Muckle Man, writer for Marvel Comics' The Fantastic Four and Spider Man

Heather McDonald: An Almost Holy Picture, Faulkner's Bicycle, The End of the Affair(Opera with Jake Heggie)

Karen Zacarias: The Sins of Sor Juana, Mariela in the Desert, The Book Club Play, Einstein is a Dummy

The Lorraine Hansberry Playwriting Award
Supported by the Kennedy Center Education Department

The Lorraine Hansberry Playwriting Award, initiated in 1977, is part of the Michael Kanin Playwriting Awards Program. The Lorraine Hansberry Playwriting Award is presented in the memory of the distinguished dramatist for the best KC/ACTF student-written plays of the subject of the African-American experience. Hansberry was the first African-American playwright, and the youngest of any color, to win the New York Drama Critics Award for her drama, A Raisin in the Sun, which opened on Broadway in 1959. Lorraine Hansberry died in 1965 of cancer, at age thirty-four, at the peak of her career.

The first place award $2,500 and an internship to the National Playwrights Conference at the O'Neill Theater Center.
Dramatic Publishing Company will present the first-place winning playwright with an offer of a contract to publish, license, and market the winning play.

The second place award $1,000

Grants of $750 and $500 will be made to the theater departments of the college or university producing the first- and second-place winners, respectively. Past national judges for the Lorraine Hansberry Playwriting Award include Stephen McKinley Henderson, John Henry Redwood, Jennifer Nelson, Douglas Turner Ward, Robert Hooks, Dr. Endesha Ida Mae Holland, and Ron Himes.

View the list of Past Winners.
Please refer to the Michael Kanin Playwriting Award Rules and Procedures.

The Lorraine Hansberry Playwriting Award: An Anthology of Prize-Winning Plays has been published by Clark Publishing, Inc. The anthology was designed as an educational resource text for college students, professors, and all theatre professionals. The Lorraine Hansberry Award is a competition for student plays best expressing the African American experience.

2006 (co-winners)
One Fell Swoop, Isaac Charles Holter, DePaul University
The Last Black Play, Nathan Louis Jackson, Ebony Theatre Company of Kansas State Univeristy

2005
Hoodoo Love by Katori Hall, Harvard University

2004
Revelations: The Outtakes by Christina Anderson, Brown University

2003
The Mancherios by Nathan Louis Jackson, Kansas State University

2002
1st: Familiar, by Kirsten Greenidge, University of Iowa
2nd: Streethawker, by John Adekoje, Humboldt State University, California

2001
1st: Whiteout by Alan Newton, English Alternative Theatre of the University of Kansas
2nd: Feeding Beatrice by Kristen Greenidge, University of Iowa

2000
No Award this year

1999
1st: The Bow Wow Club by Levi "Lee" Simon, Jr., University of Iowa, Iowa City
2nd: A Noose for Bettyanne by Javon Johnson, Kuntu Repertory Theatre of the University of Pittsburgh

1998
Papa's Blues by Javon Johnson, Kuntu Repertory Theatre of the University of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

1997
1st: Miss Nowhere Diner, Kathleen F. Potts, University of Southern Maine, Gorham
2nd: A Preface to the Alien Garden, Robert Alexander, University of Iowa, Iowa City

1996
1st: Moments Above the Underground, Geryll Robinson, University of Southern Iliinois, Carbondale
2nd: An' Push da Wind Down, Lisa Harper, University of Southern California, Los Angeles

1995
1st: Make-up Stories, Eric C. Waldemar, Jr., University of Maryland, College Park
2nd: Sunshine Playlot, Dominic Taylor, Brown University, Providence, RI

1994
1st: Hedy Understands Anxiety, Angela Counts, University of Southern California, Los Angeles
2nd: The Miracle Church, Sybil Berry, University of Pittsburgh, PA, Kuntu Repertory Theatre

1993
Talking Bones, Shay Youngblood, Brown University, Providence, RI

1992
Strands, Eric Wilson, University of Missouri, Columbia

1991
Union Station, Marta Effinger, University of Pittsburgh, PA

1990
no winner selected this year

1989
1st: Home, Theresa Love, University of California, Davis
2nd: City Women, Danna Wilner, University of Portland, OR

1988
Peabody Duck, Leslie Wade, University of California, Santa Barbara

1987
1st: Inside/Out, Tom Coash, University of California, Davis
2nd: Caught in the Middle and No Way Out, Michael Holland, SUNY, Brockport, NY

1986
1st: The Peacemaker, Arnold Pinnix, North Carolina A&T State University, Greensboro
2nd: Mournin', Carolyn Cole, University of North Carolina, Greensboro

1985
no winner selected this year

1984
1st: Eleven Zulu, Patrick Sean Clark, University of Missouri, Columbia
2nd: Snooks McAllister Lives at My House, Robyn Claire Williams, Loyola University, Chicago, IL

1983
1st: The Bulldog and the Bear, Richard Gordon, California State University, Fullerton
2nd: The Silent Warrior, Charles Smith, University of Iowa, Iowa City

1982
1st: Asaga Kimashita, Velina Houston, U.C.L.A., Los Angeles, CA
2nd: Enemies, Karen Boettcher, Portland State University, OR

1981
1st: Big Bucks and Three Piece Suits, 'Til Kingdom Come, Amen!, Joseph Mitchell, Eastern Washington University, Cheney
2nd: Second Doctor Lady/The Reconstruction of Dossie Hemphill, Endesha Holland, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis

1980
1st: Silent Octaves, Brenda Faye Collie, University of Iowa, Iowa City
2nd: That's Life, Charley Vance, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge
2nd: Nobody, An Evening with Bert Williams, Vincent D. Smith, University of Maryland, College Park

1979
1st: The American Chalk Circle, Richard Russell, San Jose State University, CA
1st: Throw Me Something, Mr. God, Daniel DuPlantis, Nichols State University, Thibodaux, Louisiana

1978
1st: The Ballad of Charley Sweet, Farrell Foreman, Northern Illinois University, DeKalb
2nd: 227, Christine Houston, Kennedy-King College, Chicago, IL

1977
1st: A Star Ain't Nothin' But a Hole in Heaven, Judi Ann Mason, Grambling College, Louisiana
2nd: Oh, Oh Freedom, Irwin Washington, U.C.L.A., Los Angeles, CA