Hare is Yale Drama Series Judge for 2009 and 2010
Story by Lizzie Guilfoyle
AS THIS year’s winner of the Yale Drama Series Award was announced, British playwright David Hare was named Yale Drama Series Judge for 2009 and 2010.
Inaugurated in 2007, the annual award supports emerging playwrights and is jointly sponsored by Yale University Press and Yale Repertory Theatre. This year’s recipient, selected by Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Edward Albee, is Grenadine by 1996 Yale University graduate, Neil Wechsler.
Wechsler will be awarded the David C. Horn Prize of $10,000 and Grenadine will be published by Yale University Press and receive a reading at Yale Repertory Theatre. The award will be formally presented at a ceremony at The Ritz-Carlton New York, Battery Park, on Sunday, September 14, 2008. The following day, a reading of the play will be given by Yale Rep in New Haven.
Grenadine follows a man’s quest for love in the company of his three devoted friends. The bonds of friendship are challenged – and ultimately reaffirmed – by their journey through an unfamiliar landscape.
Albee’s plays, which have been performed in London and on Broadway, include Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, Seascape, A Delicate Balance, The Lady from Dubuque, Three Tall Women, The Play About The Baby and The Goat or Who is Sylvia?
Speaking about the award, Albee said: “The Yale Drama Series contest submissions seem in quality a notch above many others. There is the usual dross, and the frequent skillfully dreadful TV-quality writing but, on the two occasions I was the judge, enough good work to find at least one exceptional play. What more can we ask for – intelligence, audacity and a true understanding of what playwriting is all about.”
David Hare is one of Britain’s best-known playwrights. Ten of his plays have been presented in London and on Broadway, including Plenty, Skylight, Amy’s View, The Blue Room, The Judas Kiss, Via Dolorosa and The Vertical Hour, which opened at the Royal Court earlier this year following its Broadway run. He also directed Vanessa Redgrave in the Broadway production of Joan Didion’s The Year of Magical Thinking.
Of the Yale Drama Series Award, he said: “On both sides of the Atlantic we live in a theatrical climate where new writers are paid more and more attention and less and less respect. For all the so-called play development that goes on, it’s harder than ever for a new playwright to be heard on their own terms and in their own voice. I can’t think of anything more useful and generous than the Yale prize for an unpublished play, and that’s the reason I wanted to be its first English judge.”
NB: International submissions for the 2009 Yale Drama Series competition must be postmarked no later than August 15, 2008. The competition is open to any original, unpublished and unproduced full-length play in English. For complete contest rules, visit the website.