What is the road that brought us here? Unemployed truck driver Eddie sits at a bar alone, recalling his final moments with wife, Ani, when a car accident turned the focus of their relationship from divorcing to caregiving. Overworked, under-qualified, and nearly homeless, Jess takes on another job to make ends meet – this time, as a personal caregiver for a wealthy and beautiful graduate student named John, who has cerebral palsy. The histories, influences, and challenges of four lives converge in the meeting of two strangers in a small, empty apartment in Bayonne, NJ.
For a distinguished play by an American author, preferably original in its source and dealing with American life, Fifteen thousand dollars ($15,000).
Cost of Living, by 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.
Martyna Majok accepts the 2018 Pulitzer Prize for Drama from Columbia University President Lee Bollinger. (Photo: Eileen Barroso/Columbia University)
Winning Work
Cost of Living
Biography
Martyna Majok’s plays have been presented at Williamstown Theatre Festival, Actors Theatre of Louisville, Steppenwolf Theatre, Rattlestick Playwrights Theater/WP Theater, The O’Neill and The Kennedy Center, among others. Awards include The Lanford Wilson Award, Helen Merrill Emerging Playwriting Award, Charles MacArthur Award for Outstanding Original New Play (Helen Hayes Award), David Calicchio Emerging American Playwright Prize, New York Theatre Workshop’s 2050 Fellowship, The Kennedy Center’s Jean Kennedy Smith Prize and NNPN/Smith Prize for Political Playwriting.
BA: University of Chicago; MFA: Yale School of Drama, Juilliard. Commissions include Lincoln Center Theater, Bush Theatre in London, Geffen Playhouse, La Jolla Playhouse, South Coast Rep and Manhattan Theatre Club. Martyna was the 2015–2016 PoNY (Playwrights of New York) Fellow at the Lark Play Development Center.
Finalists
Nominated as finalists in Drama in 2018:
Branden Jacobs-Jenkins
For a contemporary take on a classic morality play that offers a playful and colloquial examination of the human condition in the face of mortality.
Tracy Letts
A shocking drama set in a seemingly mundane city council meeting that acidly articulates a uniquely American toxicity that feels both historic and contemporary.
The Jury
The Jury
Dominic Papatola(Chair)
Theater Critic
Karen d’Souza
Theater Writer
Quiara Alegría Hudes*
playwright
Linda Winer
Theater Critic
Winners in Drama
Lynn Nottage
For a nuanced yet powerful drama that reminds audiences of the stacked deck still facing workers searching for the American dream.
Lin-Manuel Miranda
A landmark American musical about the gifted and self-destructive founding father whose story becomes both contemporary and irresistible.
Stephen Adly Guirgis
A nuanced, beautifully written play about a retired police officer faced with eviction that uses dark comedy to confront questions of life and death.
Annie Baker
A thoughtful drama with well-crafted characters that focuses on three employees of a Massachusetts art-house movie theater, rendering lives rarely seen on the stage.
2018 Prize Winners
The New York Times, for reporting led by Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey, and The New Yorker, for reporting by Ronan Farrow
For explosive, impactful journalism that exposed powerful and wealthy sexual predators, including allegations against one of Hollywood’s most influential producers, bringing them to account for long-suppressed allegations of coercion, brutality and victim silencing, thus spurring a worldwide reckoning about sexual abuse of women.
Staff of The Washington Post
For purposeful and relentless reporting that changed the course of a Senate race in Alabama by revealing a candidate’s alleged past sexual harassment of teenage girls and subsequent efforts to undermine the journalism that exposed it.
John Archibald of Alabama Media Group
For lyrical and courageous commentary that is rooted in Alabama but has a national resonance in scrutinizing corrupt politicians, championing the rights of women and calling out hypocrisy.
Staffs of The Arizona Republic and USA Today Network
For vivid and timely reporting that masterfully combined text, video, podcasts and virtual reality to examine, from multiple perspectives, the difficulties and unintended consequences of fulfilling President Trump's pledge to construct a wall along the U.S. border with Mexico.