FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
January 20, 2010
Contact Christopher Rawson, ATCA Chair by email, or Barbara Bannon, Primus Prize Committee Chair by email.
PLAYWRIGHT JAMIE PACHINO
WINS $10,000 FRANCESCA PRIMUS PRIZE;
JENIFER HALEY AND KATHRYN WALAT ALSO CITED
The Francesca Ronnie Primus Foundation and the American Theatre Critics Association (ATCA) are pleased to announce that playwright Jamie Pachino of Los Angeles has been awarded the 2009 Francesca Primus Prize for her play Splitting Infinity. Pachino will receive her $10,000 award immediately but will be celebrated in person at this summer’s ATCA conference at the O’Neill Theater Center in Connecticut.
The Primus Prize is given annually to an emerging woman theater artist, including playwrights, artistic directors and directors. Splitting Infinity focuses on Leigh, a Nobel Prize–winning astrophysicist, who pursues evidence of God through physics. The polarity between faith and science finds dramatic expression in two relationships in her life: the first with a handsome rabbi, Saul, whom she has known for years, and the other with Robbie, a young graduate student who idolizes her.
Splitting Infinity was commissioned by the Steppenwolf Theatre and premiered at the Geva Theatre, directed by Mark Cuddy and starring Elizabeth Hess and Michael Rupert; it has had subsequent productions at San Jose Rep, Florida Stage and elsewhere. It has already received recognition across the country, winning the Laurie Foundation Theatre Visionary Award and the STAGE International Script Competition (Professional Artists Lab/California NanoSystems Institute), plus awards from the Dorothy Silver Playwriting Competition, the Ashland New Plays Festival, and the Becket Arts Festival.
Kirsten Brandt, who directed the production at San Jose Rep, acclaims Pachino’s “lyric style” and says the theater chose the play because of its “inherent theatricality,” complex main characters that provide great roles and “ability to make an audience think.” The San Jose Mercury News named it one of the top 10 productions of 2008.
Informed of her award, playwright Pachino reacted with delight. “The Primus Prize is one that is extremely respected by women playwrights and I am so honored and delighted to be recognized.”
Pachino was selected from 41 nominees by a nationwide committee of critics, headed by Barbara Bannon (Salt Lake City) and composed of Marianne Evett, Glenda Frank, Judith Reynolds and Herb Simpson.
Given the number of contenders for the award, the committee also chose two to receive Primus Citations, funded by ATCA: Jennifer Haley of North Hollywood, CA, for Neighborhood 3: Requisition of Doom, which premiered at the Humana Festival of New American Plays at Actors Theatre of Louisville, directed by Kip Fagan; and Kathryn Walat of New York City for Bleeding Kansas, which premiered at the Hanger Theatre in Ithaca, N.Y., directed by Kevin Moriarity. Each will receive $1,000.
“The Francesca Ronnie Primus Foundation was established to recognize and support emerging women artists who are making a difference in the theater community in which they work,” said Barry Primus, the foundation head. Founded in 1997 in memory of actress, critic and ATCA member Francesca Primus, the Primus Prize was originally administered by the Denver Center Theatre Company and limited to playwrights. ATCA began overseeing the award in 2004, and the qualifications were expanded to include directors and artistic directors.
Pachino has been writing plays for more than a decade, and her work includes Waving Goodbye, The Return to Morality, Aurora’s Motive, and Race. Her plays have been produced and developed at theaters ranging from Steppenwolf to the American Conservatory Theatre, Hartford Stage, Long Wharf Theatre, Pasadena Playhouse and Northlight Theatre. She also has extensive writing credits for both film and television, and she is an actress and choreographer.
ATCA is the nationwide organization of theater critics, an affiliate of the International Association of Theatre Critics. In addition to the Primus Prize, it administers two playwriting awards: the $40,000 Harold and Mimi Steinberg/ATCA New Play Award and the M. Elizabeth Osborn Award. ATCA members also recommend a regional theater for the annual Tony Award and vote on induction into the Theatre Hall of Fame.