Finalist: A 24-Decade History of Popular Music, by Taylor Mac

Taylor Mac is a theater artist (who uses the gender pronoun, judy) which means judy’s a playwright, actor, singer-songwriter, cabaret performer, performance artist, director and producer. TimeOut New York has called Mac “One of the most exciting theater artists of our time” (naming judy the best cabaret performer in New York in 2012, and a future theater legend). American Theatre magazine says, “Mac is one of this country’s most heroic and disarmingly funny playwrights. The New Yorker says (of Mac’s acting in the title role of Brecht’s Good Person of Szechwan), “One of contemporary theater’s more unforgettable performances.” The Village Voice named judy the best theater actor in New York (2013), and The New York Times says of Mac in general, “Fabulousness can come in many forms, and Taylor Mac seems intent on assuming every one of them.” judy's work has been performed at New York City's Lincoln Center and The Public Theater, the Sydney Opera House, American Repertory Theater, Stockholm's Sodra Theatern, the Spoleto Festival, Dublin's Project Arts Centre, London's Soho Theatre and literally hundreds of other theaters, museums, music halls, cabarets and festivals around the globe. judy is the author of sixteen full-length plays and performance pieces including HIR, THE LILY'S REVENGE (Obie Award), THE WALK ACROSS AMERICA FOR MOTHER EARTH (named One of the Best Plays of 2011 by The New York Times), THE YOUNG LADIES OF (Chicago's Jeff Award nomination for Best Solo), RED TIDE BLOOMING (Ethyl Eichelberger Award), THE BE(A)ST OF TAYLOR MAC (Edinburgh Festival's Herald Angel Award). In collaboration with Mandy Patinkin, Susan Stroman and Paul Ford, Mac created THE LAST TWO PEOPLE ON EARTH: AN APOCALYPTIC VAUDEVILLE. Mac is also currently creating and performing sections from a durational concert called A 24-DECADE HISTORY OF POPULAR MUSIC, sections of which have been performed for Lincoln Center, the Under the Radar Festival at the Public Theater and Joe's Pub, and Chicago's Museum of Contemporary Art (among many others). Playscripts, Vintage Press, New York Theatre Review, and New York Theatre Experience have published judy's plays and judy is the recipient of a Helen Merrill Playwriting Award, two Sundance Theater Lab residencies, three Map Grants, the Creative Capital Grant, the James Hammerstein Award for playwriting, three GLAAD Media Award nominations, two New York State Council on the Arts grants, a Massachusetts Council of the Arts Grant, an Edward Albee Foundation residency, the Franklin Furnace Grant, a Peter S. Reed grant, and the Ensemble Studio Theatre's New Voices fellowship in playwriting. Mac is a proud alum of the HERE Arts Center Resident Artists program and is currently a New Dramatists fellow and a New York Theater Workshop Usual Suspect.