In Zora Howard's STEW, Mama is up early to prepare an important meal, and even with her family on hand to help, time is running short. Tensions simmer with three generations of Tucker women under one roof, but things come to a boil as the violence hovering around the periphery of their lives begins to intrude upon the sanctity of Mama’s kitchen.
Finalist: Stew, by Zora Howard
An intimate, tightly constructed drama about three generations of Black women over the course of one day, and the violence they are forced to live with, absorb and attempt to overcome.
Nominated Work
Stew
Biography
Zora Howard is a Harlem-bred writer and performer. Plays include STEW, Bust, AtGN, and In Good Faith. Her work has been developed by Page 73 Productions, SPACE at Ryder Farm, Pipeline Theatre Company, Yale University, and Collaborative Artists Bloc, among others. As a performer, she has appeared on HBO, TV One, PBS, and NBC. In 2019, her feature film Premature, which she co-wrote and starred in, had its world premiere at the Sundance Film Festival and was released by IFC Films in early 2020. She was a member of the 2019 Interstate 73 Writers Group and Pipeline PlayLab. She holds a BA from Yale University and an MFA from UCSD.
Winners
Prize Winner in Drama in 2021:
Katori Hall
A funny, deeply felt consideration of Black masculinity and how it is perceived, filtered through the experiences of a loving gay couple and their extended family as they prepare for a culinary competition.
Drama
Finalists
Nominated as finalists in Drama in 2021:
Michael Breslin and Patrick Foley
A contemporary satire featuring outrageous situations and language repurposed from the internet to skewer online culture and question what identities we have permission to claim.
The Jury
The Jury
Wendy Goldberg(Chair)
Artistic Director, National Playwrights Conference, Eugene O’Neill Theatre Center, New York City
Quiara Alegría Hudes*
Playwright, New York City
Naveen Kumar
Journalist/Culture Critic, New York City
Peter Marks
Theater Critic, The Washington Post
Janice Simpson
Director, Arts and Culture Reporting, Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at the City University of New York
Winners in Drama
Michael R. Jackson
A metafictional musical that tracks the creative process of an artist transforming issues of identity, race, and sexuality that once pushed him to the margins of the cultural mainstream into a meditation on universal human fears and insecurities.
Jackie Sibblies Drury
A hard-hitting drama that examines race in a highly conceptual, layered structure, ultimately bringing audiences into the actors’ community to face deep-seated prejudices.
Martyna Majok
An honest, original work that invites audiences to examine diverse perceptions of privilege and human connection through two pairs of mismatched individuals: a former trucker and his recently paralyzed ex-wife, and an arrogant young man with cerebral palsy and his new caregiver.
Lynn Nottage
For a nuanced yet powerful drama that reminds audiences of the stacked deck still facing workers searching for the American dream.
2021 Prize Winners
Robert Greene of the Los Angeles Times
For editorials on policing, bail reform, prisons and mental health that clearly and holistically examined the Los Angeles criminal justice system.
Wesley Morris of The New York Times
For unrelentingly relevant and deeply engaged criticism on the intersection of race and culture in America, written in a singular style, alternately playful and profound.
Michael Paul Williams of the Richmond (Va.) Times-Dispatch
For penetrating and historically insightful columns that guided Richmond, a former capital of the Confederacy, through the painful and complicated process of dismantling the city's monuments to white supremacy.
Nadja Drost, freelance contributor, The California Sunday Magazine
For a brave and gripping account of global migration that documents a group’s journey on foot through the Darién Gap, one of the most dangerous migrant routes in the world.