Tony Award Winner Christopher Durang to Receive Dramatists Guild Lifetime Achievement Award

Tony-winning playwright and Pulitzer finalist Christopher Durang is the recipient of the Dramatists Guild of America’s 2024 Lifetime Achievement Award, an annual award presented by the Dramatists Guild Council in recognition of distinguished lifetime achievement in theatrical writing. The award will be presented at the Guild’s annual awards ceremony on May 6 at Sony Hall.

“It’s a privilege to celebrate Christopher Durang with the Dramatists Guild’s highest honor, in recognition of his singular voice and his enduring impact on generations of other writers,” said Lloyd Suh, chair of the Dramatists Guild’s Awards Committee, in a statement. “His grace, wit, charm, and generosity are an example to all of us in the community of American dramatists.”

The night after the ceremony, Bartlett Sher directs a staged reading of Durang's Vanya and Sonya and Masha and Spike, for which he won the Tony in 2013, to benefit Lincoln Center Theater. The reading will feature original cast members Sigourney Weaver, David Hyde Pierce, Kristine Nielsen, David Hull, Shalita Grant and Genevieve Angelson.

Durang's other plays include A History of the American Film (Tony nomination), Miss Witherspoon (Pulitzer Prize finalist) and Sister Mary Ignatius Explains It All For You. He has been a member of the Dramatists Guild since 1978 and a member of the Dramatists Guild Council since 1981.

Previous recipients of the award include A.R. Gurney, Paula Vogel, Terrence McNally, August Wilson, Stephen Sondheim, John Kander & Fred Ebb, Neil Simon, Edward Albee and Arthur Miller. With more than 10,000 members around the world, the Dramatists Guild of America is the professional association for playwrights, librettists, lyricists, and composers writing for the American stage.