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For a distinguished play by an American author, preferably original in its source and dealing with American life, Five thousand dollars ($5,000).

How I Learned to Drive, by Paula Vogel

Columbia University President George Rupp (right) presents Paula Vogel with the Pulitzer Prize for Drama.

Winning Work

How I Learned to Drive

Biography

Paula Vogel's plays have been performed at theatres such as the Lortel Theatre and Circle Repertory in New York, the American Repertory Theatre, the Goodman, the Magic Theatre, Center Stage and Alley Theatre as well as throughout Canada, England, Brazil and Spain. The Baltimore Waltz won the Obie for Best Play in 1992 and her anthology,The Baltimore Waltz and Other Plays, has been published by TCG. Other plays include Hot and Throbbing, Desdemona, And Baby Makes Seven, and The Oldest Profession.

Other awards include the AT&T New Plays Award, the Fund for New American Plays, the Rockefeller Foundation's Bellagio Center Fellowship, several National Endowment for the Arts Fellowships, and the McKnight Fellowship. She is a member of New Dramatists. Her new play, The Mineola Twins, is in production at Trinity Repertory, February 28--March 23, in Providence, RI. She is currently developing her screenplay, The Oldest Profession, with Fred Berner, Joanne Zippel and Olympia Dukakis. How I Learned to Drive was made possible by the generous support of the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation and the Pew Charitable Trust Senior Residency Award. The author wishes to thank Molly Smith and Perseverance Theatre for their help in the development of this work.

Finalists

Nominated as finalists in Drama in 1998:

The Jury

Linda Winer(chair )

chief theater critic

Ben Brantley

drama critic

Richard Christiansen

chief critic and senior writer

Betty L. Corwin

director, Theater on Film and Tape Archive

Michael Phillips

drama critic

Winners in Drama

1998 Prize Winners