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The 2010 Pulitzer Prize Winner in Drama
For a distinguished play by an American author, preferably original in its source and dealing with American life, Ten thousand dollars ($10,000).

Next to Normal, by Tom Kitt and Brian Yorkey

A powerful rock musical that grapples with mental illness in a suburban family and expands the scope of subject matter for musicals.
Lee Bollinger, Tom Kitt and Brian Korkey

Lee C. Bollinger, President of Columbia University (left), presents the 2010 Drama prize to Tom Kitt (center) and Brian Yorkey (right).

Winning Work

Next to Normal

By

Tom Kitt and Brian Yorkey

To me, NEXT TO NORMAL is like an independent film. I love the honesty of its characters and the riskiness of its concerns. I love how one family's crisis becomes every family's crisis and how all the dirty laundry is left out for everyone to see.

I love the specificity and originality of the lyrics -- which make directing and acting the play so vigorous and joyous, and so painful and rewarding. And mostly, I love the extraordinary music that expresses every idea and every emotion so perfectly and so profoundly.

It's great to discover an original musical with so much intelligence and so much heart. I hope you love this recording as much as I have loved being a part of its creation.

-- Michael Greif, director

— from liner notes to the recording

 

Note: this play was moved into contention by the Board within the Drama category.

Biography

Tom Kitt (on right in photo) received 2009 Tony Awards for Best Score and Best Orchestrations forNext to Normal, which had successful productions at both Second Stage (Outer Critics Circle Award for Best New Score; Drama Desk, Lucille Lortel, Drama League nominations) and Arena Stage (nominated for five 2009 Helen Hayes Awards including Best Musical). He composed the music for High Fidelity (Broadway) and From Up Here (MTC), and his original songs have been featured in film and TV. He recently created new orchestrations for the CTG/DeafWest production of Pippin. As a musical director, conductor and arranger (Broadway and Off-Broadway), shows include 13, Hair, Laugh Whore, Urban Cowboy and Debbie Does Dallas. This spring, Tom will be the musical supervisor/arranger/orchestrator for Everyday Rapture at Second Stage, and his string arrangements will appear on the new Green Day album 21st Century Breakdown. He is the proud leader of The Tom Kitt Band.

Brian Yorkey received the 2009 Tony Award for Best Score for his work on Next to Normal and was also nominated for the Tony Award for Best Book of a Musical. Theatre credits include Making Tracks, which has played Off-Broadway and regionally; the musical adaptation of Ang Lee’s The Wedding Banquet; and the new country musical Play It By Heart. Film and TV include the features Time After Time, in development at Universal with Marc Platt, and Sluts for Lionsgate and Furst Films; he is currently writing Love Undercover for Pandemonium Films and Overture, and Chase for Anonymous Content and Rosenzweig Films; and he co-created “Bears,” a new series for the Logo network. He has directed Off-Broadway and regionally, and for seven years was associate artistic director at Village Theatre in Washington state, one of the nation’s leading producers of new musicals. He’s a graduate of Columbia University, where he was artistic director of the Varsity Show, an alum of the BMI/Lehman Engel Musical Theatre Workshop and a proud member of the Dramatists Guild and the WGA.

Finalists

Nominated as finalists in Drama in 2010:

Kristoffer Diaz

A play invoking the exaggerated role-playing of professional wrestling to explore themes from globalization to ethnic stereotyping, as the audience becomes both intimate insider and ringside spectator.

Rajiv Joseph

A play about the chaotic Iraq war that uses a network of characters, including a caged tiger, to ponder violent, senseless death, blending social commentary with tragicomic mayhem.

Sarah Ruhl

An inventive work that mixes comedy and drama as it examines the medical practice of a 19th century American doctor and confronts questions of female sexuality and emancipation.

The Jury

Charles McNulty(chair )

drama critic

John M. Clum

professor of theater studies and English

Nilo Cruz*

playwright

David Rooney

chief theater critic

Hedy Weiss

theater and dance critic

Winners in Drama

2009

Lynn Nottage

A searing drama set in chaotic Congo that compels audiences to face the horror of wartime rape and brutality while still finding affirmation of life and hope amid hopelessness.
See All Drama

2010 Prize Winners

Fiction

Paul Harding

A powerful celebration of life in which a New England father and son, through suffering and joy, transcend their imprisoning lives and offer new ways of perceiving the world and mortality.
Special Citations and Awards

Hank Williams

For his craftsmanship as a songwriter who expressed universal feelings with poignant simplicity and played a pivotal role in transforming country music into a major musical and cultural force in American life.
History

Liaquat Ahamed

A compelling account of how four powerful bankers played crucial roles in triggering the Great Depression and ultimately transforming the United States into the world's financial leader.
Poetry

Rae Armantrout

A book striking for its wit and linguistic inventiveness, offering poems that are often little thought-bombs detonating in the mind long after the first reading.
See All 2010 Winners