NEW YORK CITY: The Harold and Mimi Steinberg Charitable Trust has announced Christopher Chen and Zora Howard as the recipients of the 2025 Steinberg Playwright Awards. The “Mimi Awards” honor two early-to-mid-career playwrights who have unique and compelling voices, and whose work exhibits exceptional talent and artistic excellence. Each will receive a prize of $100,000. For 40 years, the Steinberg Trust has been dedicated to shining a light on distinctive theatrical voices, and to investing in the future of American playwriting amidst ever-evolving challenges facing artists.
Christopher Chen was born and raised in San Francisco. His plays Caught, The Headlands, Passage, The Late Wedding, You Mean To Do Me Harm and The Hundred Flowers Project have been produced across the U.S. and abroad at companies such as Lincoln Center (LCT3), American Conservatory Theater, Soho Rep, The Play Company, Crowded Fire, Singapore Rep, S.F. Playhouse, The Wilma, InterAct Theatre, and Shotgun Players, among others. His play The Motion will be produced at Arena Stage this spring. Honors include the Obie Award (for Caught), the Windham Campbell Prize, USA Fellowship, the inaugural Ollie Award, the Lanford Wilson Award (co-winner), a Sundance Time Warner Fellowship, and the Paula Vogel Award. Current commissions include ACT, Portland Center Stage, and the Mark Gordon Company. As a screenwriter he co-wrote the Sundance award-winning The Accidental Getaway Driver, the upcoming film The Hole directed by Kim Jee-woon, and the upcoming television series Spider-Noir. He is a graduate of UC Berkeley and holds an MFA in Playwriting from SF State.
Zora Howard is a Harlem-bred writer and director. Plays include Stew (P73 Productions; Pulitzer Prize finalist), Hang Time (The Flea, national tour, Creative Capital finalist), Bust (The Alliance, Goodman, Susan Smith Blackburn finalist), The Master’s Tools (Williamstown Theatre Festival, Wiener Festwochen), AtGN, and The Motions. In 2020, her feature film Premature, which she co-wrote with director Rashaad Ernesto Green, opened in theatres following its world premiere at the 2019 Sundance Film Festival. She is currently the 2025 Peacedale Kopit Fellow, a former MTC Judith Champion Fellow, and a Van Lier New Voices Fellow, as well as a recipient of the Lilly Award, Helen Merrill Award, and AUDELCO Special Achievement Award. Her work has been developed at Cinereach, Ojai Playwrights Conference, Second Stage, New York Theatre Workshop, La Napoule Art Foundation, Stillwright, and Cape Cod Theatre Project, among others. Current commissions include Seattle Rep and Chautauqua Theater Company and film projects with Shot of Tea, FilmNation, Wychwood Media, and River Road Entertainment.
NEW YORK CITY: The Consortium of Asian American Theaters and Artists (CAATA) has announced the inaugural Godfather Prize for Asian American playwrights. This national prize aims to support AANHPI, SWANA, MENA, and mixed-race playwrights whose work reflects artistic excellence, cultural impact, and the spirit of legacy, resistance, and evolution. It is one of just two ongoing prizes specifically for Asian American theatre artists (and the only one open to those outside education).
This year, eight finalists will be invited to be part of CAATA’s inaugural 10-Minute Playwriting Festival: Legacy. Resistance. Evolution., which will feature live-streamed presentations of each finalist’s play in November. Festival benefits include $200 honorarium for festival participation, a free full pass for CAATA’s ConFest 2027, the opportunity to collaborate with a director and/or dramaturg, and professional actors. The winner will be chosen from the festival performances, and will receive a $1,000 prize, a staged reading of a full-length play of their choice in 2027, presented online and/or in partnership with one of CAATA’s affiliated network theatres, and a free full pass to CAATA’s ConFest 2028.
The submission portal is open through April 3 at 11:59 p.m. ET, or until the first 200 eligible submissions are received. Playwrights are required to submit an artist statement along with their 10-minute play with one to four actors minimum that meaningfully supports and reflects lived experiences, histories, or futures of AANHPI, SWANA, MENA, and/or mixed-race communities. Playwrights who identify as part of these communities must have not received a major national or international playwriting award, not had a play produced by a LORT or commercial theatre, and not achieved sustained national recognition (defined as consistent visibility across the U.S. beyond local or regional contexts). The prize is open to all ages.
It’s made possible through the foundational support of Roger W. Tang, the executive director of Pork Filled Productions, known by some as “Godfather of Asian American theatre.” Tang will match all funds donated to the endowment in 2026 up to $30,000. Contributions will be accepted through CAATA’s dedicated Playwright Festival fund. Future prizes will be drawn from an endowment established by CAATA.
SEATTLE: Base, in partnership with Under the Radar Festival, has announced new residency program BASE + RADAR. Its first resident artist will be absurdist artist Alex Tatarsky, who will come to Seattle for an immersive two-week development experience in April 2026. Tatarsky makes performances in the “unfortunate in-between zone” of comedy, performance art, dance, theatre, and deluded rant, “sometimes with songs.” The residency supports the development of Tatarsky’s latest project and will culminate in public work-in-progress showings at Base on April 10-11.
This new collaborative model is designed to give artists an opportunity to develop work in an immersive, supportive environment while engaging a new community in the work’s evolution. In this inaugural edition, Tatarsky will experiment with a new piece with long-time collaborators Shane Riley (sound), Andreea Mincic (scenic, costumes), Iris McCloughan (co-direction, dramaturgy), and a rotating cast of local Seattle-based outside eyes. They will have 24/7 access to Base and the chance to share their work in two public showings. The residency allows Tatarsky to experiment and refine this work-in-progress in real time prior to its premiere at Under the Radar.
