MANASOTA KEY, FLA.: The Hermitage Artist Retreat has announced that New York-based playwright Anne Washburn has been selected as the sixth recipient of the Hermitage Major Theater Award (HMTA). This jury-selected prize, established by the Hermitage in 2021 with support from Flora Major and the Kutya Major Foundation, offers one of the largest unrestricted nonprofit theatre commissions in the United States. Washburn will receive a cash prize of $35,000, a residency at the Hermitage, and a developmental workshop in a major arts capital. For this commission, a workshop is anticipated for New York in late 2027.
Washburn’s plays include Mr. Burns, A Post-Electric Play, 10 out of 12, Antlia Pneumatica, and The Burning Cauldron of Fiery Fire. Her work has been produced nationally and internationally, with premiers at 13P, Actors Theatre of Louisville, the Almeida, American Repertory Theater, Cherry Lane Theatre, Classic Stage, Clubbed Thumb, The Civilians, Dixon Place, Ensemble Studio Theatre, The Folger, Playwrights Horizons, Soho Rep, Two River Theater, Vineyard Theatre, and Woolly Mammoth. Her honors include an Alpert Award, a Guggenheim, a PEN/Laura Pels Award, and a Whiting Award.
ATLANTA: The Alliance/Kendeda National Graduate Playwriting Competition has announced that the winning play of its 23rd competition is The Red Man by JuCoby Johnson of the Juilliard School. Johnson is a New York-based playwright, actor, and screenwriter whose plays have been developed and produced by the Eugene O’Neill Theater Center, Ojai Playwrights Conference, the Playwrights’ Center, and many others. Described as a Southern Gothic thriller and love story, The Red Man will be produced as part of the Alliance’s 2027-28 season. It was developed in the 2025 Pacific Playwrights Festival as part of the Lab@South Coast Repertory, and with the Ojai Playwrights Conference.
The four competition finalists, which will each receive a developmental workshop and staged reading as part of the 2027 Alliance/Kendeda Week, are The Fifth of November by Nora Brigid Monahan of CUNY Hunter College; 8½ Collisions by Danielle Keiko Eyer of New York University; Vulturine by Matt Thekkethala of University of Texas at Austin; and Water Aerobics with Christopher, 8:30 am by Helen Gallagher of Brooklyn College.
The Alliance/Kendeda National Graduate Playwriting Competition solicits plays from leading MFA graduate programs in the United States, spotlighting emerging playwrights with a full production for the competition winner and staged readings for four competition finalists. This year’s judges include playwright, theatre director, and MacArthur “Genius” Luis Alfaro; award-winning playwright York Walker; and director and educator Nicole A. Watson. Past winners include Tarell Alvin McCraney, a.k. payne, Mansa Ra, and Marcus Gardley.
NEW YORK CITY: The American Theatre Wing has announced the recipients of the 2025 Jonathan Larson Grants for composers, lyricists, and book writers that judges feel are shaping the next wave of musical theatre. The 2025 Larson Grant Recipients are multimedia artist Fouad Dakwar; playwright and songwriter Dan Fishback; award-winning writing partners Scott Gilmour and Claire McKenzie; composer, lyricist, and librettist Adam J. Rineer; and playwright, songwriter, and educator abs wilson. Two presentations showcasing their work will be held on March 23 at Joe’s Pub at 6:30 p.m. and 9 p.m.
Focused on supporting emerging musical theatre composers, lyricists, and librettists, the Larson grant offers $20,000 in unrestricted funds to each winner, as well as a $2,500 Saw Island Foundation Recording Grant to support the production of a new demo.
ITHACA, N.Y.: Masi Asare of Northwestern University and arts journalist Billy McEntee have been named the winners of Cornell University’s 2024-25 George Jean Nathan Award for Dramatic Criticism. This award was endowed by prominent theatre critic George Jean Nathan (1882-1958).
Asare won for her book, Blues Mamas & Broadway Belters: Black Women, Voice, and the Musical Stage. She is a Tony-nominated songwriter (Paradise Square), voice teacher, and scholar. An associate professor of theatre and performance studies at Northwestern, she directs its American Musical Theatre Project and holds the McCormick Professorship for teaching excellence. Her book also received the Judy Tsou Critical Race Studies Award from the American Musicological Society, and she has been honored as a woman composer with the Ziegfeld Award.
McEntee won for “On Digital Naturalism,” his review of the musical Redwood. He is the theatre editor at Brooklyn Rail, where he writes essays on new works, often experimental-leaning ones with shorter runs. He has freelanced for The Boston Globe, American Theatre, Vanity Fair, and many other publications. McEntee is also a site-specific theatremaker; his The Voices in Your Head was a 2025 Drama Desk Award nominee for Unique Theatrical Experience, and Slanted Floors made Vulture’s list of the best theatre of 2025. He teaches at the School of The New York Times and the American College Theater Festival.
NEW YORK CITY: The 2026 Richard Rodgers Awards winners have been announced, and both are adaptations of Homer’s The Odyssey. Bludline: A Hip-Hop Odyssey by Fermin Suero Jr. and Pete White reimagines Homer’s epic through live hip-hop and R&B. Penelope, with a book by Alex Bechtel, Grace McLean, and Eva Steinmetz, and music and lyrics by Bechtel, tells the story of one day in the life of Penelope of Ithaca as she waits for Odysseus to return with one actor, a five-piece band, and folk-pop songs. Both winning musicals will receive funds toward their presentation at nonprofit theatre in New York City. This year’s selection committee included chairman David Lang, Mindi Dickstein, Amanda Green, Michael R. Jackson, Richard Maltby Jr., Rona Siddiqui, and John Weidman. The award was established by Broadway composer Richard Rodgers in 1978, a year before his death.
AUSTIN: Ground Floor Theatre (GFT) has announced that four Austin-local playwrights have been chosen as 2026 GFT Writes fellows, a yearlong fellowship anchored around a monthly writers group of artists, now in its third year. This year’s recipients include actor and theatre educator Michelle Alexander; married couple Jenny Larson-Quiñones and khattieQ, who comprise the duo jkjk; actress and playwright Devon Khalsa; and Houston-based playwright Sam Mayer.
GFT’s director of new works, Megan Thornton, will continue to lead the program, which runs February 2026-January 2027. In 2025, the GFT Writes program expanded to include table reads with actors in the spring, and additional access to Ground Floor Theatre resources. The fellowship culminates with the GFT Writes reading series, a workshop and staged reading presented by Ground Floor Theatre in January 2027.
ROCHESTER, N.Y.: Geva Theatre has announced the recipients of its Essie Calhoun Diversity in the Arts Awards, which annually honor people or organizations that promote and encourage diversity in the arts. This year’s “Essie” Award recipients are the Puerto Rican Festival of Rochester; artist, educator and activist Luvon Sheppard; social activist Javannah Davis; and filmmaker Tina Chapman DaCosta.
