FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

May 16, 2006

Contact:

Dominic Papatola, ATCA Chairman

St. Paul Pioneer Press
612-781-0138

E- mail: dpapatola@pioneerpress.com

PLAYWRIGHT/ARTISTIC DIRECTOR

KAREN ZACARIAS WINS THE

$10,000 FRANCESCA PRIMUS PRIZE

The Francesca Ronnie Primus Foundation and the American Theatre Critics Association (ATCA) are pleased to announce that Karen Zacarías has been awarded the 2006 Francesca Primus Prize.

Zacarías is the author of several plays, including 2005’s Mariela in the Desert, and the founder and artistic director of Young Playwrights’ Theater in Washington, D.C.

“The Francesca Ronnie Primus Foundation was established to recognize and support emerging women artists, who are making a difference in the theater community which they work,” said Barry Primus, administrator of the Francesca Ronnie Primus Foundation. “As an artistic director, producer and writer, Karen Zacarías richly deserves the Prize, and we at the Francesca Ronnie Primus Foundation are so pleased to honor her.”

The Primus Prize may be given to women in all pioneering categories of theater though it has focused primarily on emerging female playwrights in past years. Last year’s winner, Michelle Hensley, artistic director of Ten Thousand Things Theatre Company in Minneapolis, Minn., was the first non-playwright to receive the award.

Administered by ATCA since 2004, the Primus Foundation's prize is worth $10,000, and will be presented to Zacarías during ATCA’s mini-conference in New York City next January. It was administered by the Denver Center Theatre Company until 2002.

Zacarías was chosen by a nationwide panel of theater critics, headed by Nancy Melich, retired theater critic for The Salt Lake Tribune. Other awards offered annually by ATCA are the Harold and Mimi Steinberg/ATCA New Play Awards and the M. Elizabeth Osborn Award. All of these awards are overseen by the New Plays Committee, chaired by Orlando (Fla.) Sentinel theater critic Elizabeth Maupin.

“There were 10 Primus applicants from seven states,” Melich said. “Not all were from playwrights; some were artistic directors and producers. Our winner is all three, and hence fills the Primus model perfectly.

“Her play Mariela in the Desert had a feisty, spirited and seductive quality to the writing that held my attention completely, and, in the process told a captivating story.”

Mariela is an artist who has deferred her dream of painting, and is now taking care of her ailing husband, Jose, a famous artist, who included among his friends Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo. The play takes place in 1950 on a small ranch in the Northern Mexican desert region.

In a Washington Post article, Zacarías said she wrote the play to examine “what happens to a family when parents' creative impulses or creative lives are shut away and what damage that can do.”

Mariela in the Desert had its world premiere in January 2005 at The Goodman Theatre in Chicago. The play is the winner of both the 2004 AT&T First Stages Award from Theatre Communications Group and the 2004 National Latino Playwrights’ Competition. It was a finalist for the 2004 Susan Smith Blackburn prize and was nominated for the 2005 Kesselring Prize. Mariela in the Desert was developed at South Coast Rep, Seattle Repertory Theatre and the Public Theatre in New York.

Zacarías was also cited for her exemplary work with children through the Young Playwrights' Theater. Its stated mission is to foster literacy and conflict resolution through play writing in D.C.'s inner-city schools.

Her musicals for young audiences with composer Deborah Wicks La Puma include Einstein Is a Dummy, Ferdinand the Bull and Cinderella Eats Rice and Beans: A Salsa Fairytale.

In her application, Zacarías, a native of Mexico who holds degrees from Stanford University and Boston University, stated “. . . I am so grateful I do what I do. I love being a playwright. I love teaching play writing. I love the drama of being a wife and mother. I love the everyday drama that is life.

“I've come to accept that I am not neat and orderly. That no matter how many times I buy an organizer at The Container Store, I will always be a little harried, my hair will always be a little frazzled. No matter how well I write in English, my voice will always have a hint of Mexican accent.

“I now accept that my roles seep into each other, that I wear more than one hat at all times, that all my colors cross borders at some point. I draw outside the lines...as often as I can.”

Theatre writer, critic and dramaturge Francesca Primus died of lung cancer in New York City in 1992 at the age of 45. She wrote eloquently about the role of women in theatre and was a strong supporter of the regional theater movement. Primus was a member of ATCA and Drama Desk.

Previous winners of the Francesca Primus Prize are:
1997 – Julia Jordan, playwright, Tatjana in Color
1998 – Brooke Berman, playwright, Wonderland
1999 – Melanie Marnich, playwright, Blur
2000 – Brooke Berman, playwright, Playing House
2001 – S. M. Shepard-Massat, playwright, Some Place Soft to Fall
2002 – Alexandra Cunningham, playwright, Pavane
2004 – Lynn Nottage, playwright, Intimate Apparel
2005 – Michelle Hensley, artistic director of Ten Thousand Things Theatre Company, Minneapolis, Minn.

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