Norris, McCraney & Adjmi Win First Steinberg Playwright Awards

Bruce Norris, Tarell Alvin McCraney and David Adjmi are the first recipients of the Steinberg Playwright Awards, which were announced at a September 17 press conference by Tony Kushner. The awards were established in 2008 by the Harold and Mimi Steinberg Charitable Trust to recognize up-and-coming playwrights at various stages of their careers and will be presented at a ceremony on October 26 at the Vivian Beaumont Theatre.

Kushner received the first Steinberg Distinguished Playwright Award in 2008, a cash prize of $200,000, representing the largest award ever created to encourage artistic achievement in the American theater. The Distinguished Playwright Award (for established playwrights) will be presented in alternating years with awards to emerging playwrights such as Norris, McCraney and Adjmi. Norris will receive a $50,000 cash award honoring his body of work and outstanding potential, and Adjmi and McCraney will each receive $25,000 for being promising new voices in the theater. The playwrights will also be presented with the "Mimi," an award statue designed by David Rockwell.

Norris, a member of the Steppenwolf Theatre ensemble, is the author of The Infidel, Purple Heart, We All Went Down to Amsterdam, The Pain and the Itch, The Unmentionables, Clybourne Park (which will be produced this season at Playwrights Horizons) and A Parallelogram (set for a 2010 premiere at Steppenwolf).

McCraney is the author of a trilogy of plays, In the Red and Brown Water, The Brothers Size and Marcus; or the Secret of Sweet, which will be performed together this fall at the Public Theater under the title The Brother/Sister Plays Part 1 and Part 2. His play Wig Out was produced by the Vineyard Theatre.

Adjmi is the author of Stunning (produced in June by Lincoln Center Theater’s LCT3), The Evildoers, Marie Antoinette, Elective Affinities, Strange Attractors, Caligula and 3C.