Playwright Jocelyn Bioh to Be Recognized by the Dramatists Guild for Jaja's African Hair Braiding

The playwright Jocelyn Bioh, whose Jaja’s African Hair Braiding opened on Broadway in 2023, is to be honored by the Dramatists Guild at their annual ceremony on May 6 at Sony Hall. Bioh is the recipient of the Hull-Warriner Award, presented annually to an author in recognition of a play that deals with controversial subjects involving the fields of political, religious or social mores of the times.

Bioh also won the award in 2017 for School Girls, or the African Mean Girls Play. Other recent winners include Michael R. Jackson (A Strange Loop), Heidi Schreck (What the Constitution Means to Me), Paula Vogel (Indecent) and Lin Manuel-Miranda (Hamilton). This year's finalists include Eboni Booth for Primary Trust, Rebecca Gilman for Swing State, Branden Jacobs-Jenkins for The Comeuppance and Qui Nguyen for Poor Yella Rednecks.

As previously announced, Christopher Durang, who passed away earlier this month, will be honored with a Lifetime Achievement Award at the ceremony, in recognition of distinguished lifetime achievement in theatrical writing. George C. Wolfe and Emily Mann will also receive Lifetime Achievement Awards.

Also on the night, the composer Adam Guettel will receive the Frederick Loewe Award, recognizing achievement in a theatrical score, for Days of Wine and Roses, while the actor and playwright Austin Pendelton will receive the Flora Roberts Award, given in recognition of distinguished work in the theater and to encourage the continuation of that work.

The Lanford Wilson Award, for an early-career or emerging playwright, will go to two playwrights: Seayoung Yim and Minna Lee. The playwright Eboni Booth, whose play Primary Trust premiered at Roundabout Theatre Company in 2023, and Shayan Lotfi, whose play What Became of Us will have its off-Broadway premiere at Atlantic Theater Company this spring, will receive the Horton Foote Award, in honor of a dramatist or dramatists whose work seeks to plumb the ineffable nature of being human.

Presenters for the evening will include David Adjmi, Nissy Aya, Dave Harris, Mara Isaacs, Branden Jacobs-Jenkins and Robert O’Hara.