Tony Kushner has been named the first recipient of the Steinberg Distinguished Playwright Award, which carries a cash prize of $200,000 and a statue dubbed "The Mimi" designed by David Rockwell. The award was established by The Harold and Mimi Steinberg Charitable Trust to honor an American playwright whose body of work has made significant contributions to the American theater. Kushner will receive his prize at a ceremony on October 21.
The Steinberg Distinguished Playwright Award will be presented on a biennial basis. On alternate years beginning in 2009, the Steinberg Trust will bestow an Emerging Playwrights Award honoring two early-career playwrights whose professional work shows great promise. The recipients will each receive a cash award of $50,000 and a "Mimi" statue.
Kushner's plays include A Bright Room Called Day, Angels in America: Millennium Approaches, Angels in America: Perestroika and Homebody/Kabul and the musical Caroline, or Change. He has written adaptations of Corneille's The Illusion, S.Y. Ansky's The Dybbuk, and Brecht's The Good Person of Setzuan and Mother Courage and Her Children, as well as English-language libretti for the operas Brundibàr and The Comedy on the Bridge. He wrote the screenplays for Mike Nichols's film version of Angels in America and Steven Spielberg's Munich. Kushner's many awards include the Pulitzer Prize, an Emmy, an Oscar nomination, two Tony Awards, three Obie Awards and an Olivier Award.
