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For a distinguished play by an American author, preferably original in its source and dealing with American life, Ten thousand dollars ($10,000).

Between Riverside and Crazy, by 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.
Mike Pride, Lee Bollinger and Stephen Adly guirgis

Mike Pride, Pulitzer Prize Administrator (left) and Lee C. Bollinger, President of Columbia University (center), present the 2015 Drama Prize to Stephen Adly Guirgis.

Winning Work

Between Riverside and Crazy

Directed by Austin Pendelton

World Premiere
Linda Gross Theater, 336 W 20th St.
Run Time: Approximately 2 hours, with one 15 minute intermission

City Hall is demanding more than his signature, the Landlord wants him out, the liquor store is closed — and the Church won’t leave him alone. For ex-cop & recent widower Walter “Pops” Washington and his recently paroled son Junior, when the struggle to hold on to one of the last great rent stabilized apartments on Riverside Drive collides with old wounds, sketchy new houseguests, and a final ultimatum, it seems the Old Days are dead and gone — after a lifetime living between Riverside and Crazy.

A world premiere from the wildly original author of Broadway’s The Motherf*cker with the Hat, Jesus Hopped the A Train, and The Last Days of Judas Iscariot.

Biography

Stephen Adly Guirgis is a member and former co-artistic director of LAByrinth Theater Company. His plays have been produced on five continents and throughout the United States. They include Our Lady of 121st Street (Drama Desk, Lucille Lortel, Outer Critics Circle Best Play Nominations), Jesus Hopped the ‘A’ Train (Edinburgh Festival Fringe First Award, Barrymore Award, Olivier Nomination for London’s Best New Play), In Arabia, We’d All Be Kings (2007 LA Drama Critics Best Play, Best Writing Award), The Last Days of Judas Iscariot (10 best Time Magazine & Entertainment Weekly), and The Little Flower of East Orange (with Ellen Burstyn & Michael Shannon). All five plays were directed by Philip Seymour Hoffman and were originally produced by LAByrinth.

His most recent play, Between Riverside and Crazy, recently completed a sold-out run at Atlantic Theater Company, and will transfer to Second Stage Theatre in 2015. His 2011 play, The Motherf***er with the Hat (6 Tony nominations, including Best Play), was directed by Anna D. Shapiro and marked his third consecutive world premiere co-production with The Public Theater and LAByrinth.

In London, his plays have premiered at The Donmar Warehouse, The Almeida (dir: Rupert Goold), The Hampstead (Robert Delamere), and at The Arts Theater in the West End. Other plays include Den of Thieves (Labyrinth, HERE, HAI, Black Dahlia) and Dominica The Fat Ugly Ho (dir: Adam Rapp) for the 2006 E.S.T. Marathon. He has received the Yale Wyndham-Campbell Prize, a PEN/Laura Pels Award, a Whiting Award, and a TCG fellowship. He is also a New Dramatists Alumnae and a member of MCC’s Playwright’s Coalition, The Ojai Playwrights Festival, New River Dramatists, and Labyrinth Theater Company.

As an actor, he has appeared in theater, film and television, including roles in Kenneth Lonergan’s film "Margaret," Todd Solondz’s "Palindromes," and Brett C. Leonard’s "Jailbait" opposite Michael Pitt.

A former violence prevention specialist and H.I.V. educator, he lives in New York City.

Finalists

Nominated as finalists in Drama in 2015:

Jordan Harrison

A sly and surprising work about technology and artificial intelligence told through images and ideas that resonate.

Suzan-Lori Parks

A distinctive and lyrical epic about a slave during the Civil War that deftly takes on questions of identity, power and freedom with a blend of humor and dignity.

The Jury

Dominic P. Papatola(Chair )

theater critic

Misha Berson

drama critic

Elysa Gardner

entertainment critic

Lynn Nottage*

playwright

Marc Robinson

professor of English and theater studies

Winners in Drama

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.

Ayad Akhtar

A moving play that depicts a successful corporate lawyer painfully forced to consider why he has for so long camouflaged his Pakistani Muslim heritage.

Quiara Alegría Hudes

An imaginative play about the search for meaning by a returning Iraq war veteran working in a sandwich shop in his hometown of Philadelphia.

Bruce Norris

For "Clybourne Park," a powerful work whose memorable characters speak in witty and perceptive ways to America's sometimes toxic struggle with race and class consciousness.

2015 Prize Winners

Anthony Doerr

An imaginative and intricate novel inspired by the horrors of World War II and written in short, elegant chapters that explore human nature and the contradictory power of technology.

Julia Wolfe

A powerful oratorio for chorus and sextet evoking Pennsylvania coal-mining life around the turn of the 20th Century.

David I. Kertzer

An engrossing dual biography that uses recently opened Vatican archives to shed light on two men who exercised nearly absolute power over their realms.

Gregory Pardlo

Clear-voiced poems that bring readers the news from 21st Century America, rich with thought, ideas and histories public and private.