A New Reign

I came across this today in my daily romp through the New York Times:

Australian Playwright Wins Yale Drama Series Award
By PATRICK HEALY
An Australian play about four people from a small town trying to build new lives after a violent crime has won the 2011 Yale Drama Series award for an emerging playwright. John Guare, the acclaimed stage writer (“The House of Blue Leaves,” “Six Degrees of Separation”) and judge for the series, announced on Tuesday that Shannon Murdoch had won for “New Light Shine.” Ms. Murdoch, who is a legal assistant and writer living near Melbourne, will receive $10,000 from the David Charles Horn Foundation, and there will be a staged reading of the play at the Yale Repertory Theater on Sept. 12. Yale University Press will also publish the play.

The runners-up in the annual international competition were Laura Marks for “Bethany” and Mary Elizabeth Hamilton for “We Three.” This is the fifth time the prize has been awarded. Probably the best-known winner is Frances Ya-Chu Cowhig, whose “Lidless” has been staged in Philadelphia; Edinburgh; Austin, Tex.; and at the Contemporary American Theater Festival in West Virginia.

A little bittersweet for me. I was runnerup last year, when David Hare was judge. I met the Yale Drama Series crew in September and went to the reading at Yale Rep for Virginia Gris' blu. It was magical.

Get to work, Mare!