BUFFALO, N.Y.: Alleyway Theatre has selected playwright T. Adamson as the recipient of the annual Maxim Mazumdar New Play Award for his play The Natural Horse. The winning playwright receives a cash prize and the opportunity to have their play produced in an upcoming Alleyway mainstage season.
“Adamson’s play is clearly in line with the goals of the Mazumdar,” said Alleyway artistic director Chris J Handley in a statement. “It is uniquely theatrical, totally authentic, and wildly delightful and original.”
The Mazumdar Award has been given each year since 1989 in memory of Canadian actor/playwright Maxim Mazumdar, whose many contributions to the early growth of Alleyway Theatre were artistically invaluable. In 2020, the theatre’s new leadership team eliminated the entry fee, opening access to the yearly competition as part of the company’s latest strategic plan. This resulted in a surge of scripts, now totaling approximately 1,500 submissions each year. Finalists for the 2022 Mazumdar award include 30 Seconds by Jayne Deely and The Death of Hayden Waverly, the Most Popular Person in the World
by Lauren Wimmer.
Inspired by Frank Lloyd Wright’s 1954 book, The Natural House, The Natural Horse is a play about a family of ex-Soviet immigrants in suburban Wisconsin. When eldest daughter Masha brings home a feral horse named Goodboy to live under Mom and Dad’s roof, the play explodes into a theatrical look at how we search for people and spaces to call home. The Natural Horse was recently named a finalist for the O’Neill National Playwrights Conference.
“I’m so thrilled to receive the Mazumdar Award and I’m ecstatic to be able to share The Natural Horse at the Alleyway,” said Adamson in a statement. “This play is a big, wacky, heartfelt comedy that somehow blends classic Russian literature, architectural theory, and zany puppetry into a contemporary folktale about family, growing up, and building a home.”
The Natural Horse, directed by Robyn Lee Horn, will receive its world premiere at Alleyway Theatre Oct. 20-Nov. 11.
T. Adamson is a Texas-raised writer and theatre artist of Anglo/Mexican ancestry who has developed new work with Vineyard Theatre, Playwrights Horizons, Great Plains Theater Commons, Clubbed Thumb, JACK, Cutting Ball, The Mercury Store, and many others. His plays include No Nothing, The Straights, and Usus. He is an alumnus of Fresh Ground Pepper’s Playground Playgroup, Exquisite Corpse Company’s Fall Writers’ Lab, and Clubbed Thumb’s Early Career Writers’ Group. Awards include the Irv Zarkower Award, Rita and Burton Goldberg Playwriting Prize, a Falco/Steinman Commission from Playwrights Horizons, and the 2022-23 Paula Vogel Playwriting Award from Vineyard Theatre.
The Alleyway is accepting submissions of new, unproduced, full-length plays in consideration for the 2023 Mazumdar Award through July 25.
Alleyway Theatre is a professional theatre company and collaborative new play incubator located in Buffalo. The theatre seeks to foster the talents of emergent artists from Western New York and beyond, embracing fearlessness, theatricality, humanity, and authenticity. As of 2022, Alleyway had an approximate budget of $202,979.
