FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

March 12, 2004

U.S. Theatre Critics select six finalists for the 2003 New Play Award

The American Theatre Critics Association (ATCA) has named six finalists for one of America's most prestigious national playwriting prizes, the American Theatre Critics/Steinberg New Play Award. The winner will be announced April 3, 2004 at the Humana Festival of New American Plays.

Due to generous support from the Harold and Mimi Steinberg Charitable Trust, the award-winning playwright receives $15,000 cash -- a sum greater than that of America's most prominent playwriting award, the Pulitzer Prize. In addition, two finalists will receive awards of $5,000 each.

The 2003 finalists are:

"Gem of the Ocean" by August Wilson, produced by Chicago's Goodman Theatre and the Mark Taper Forum in Los Angeles. The ninth of Wilson's planned 10-play cycle about the African-American experience in the 20th century is set in 1904 in Pittsburgh's Hill District. It's there that the central character, the nearly 300-year-old holy woman Aunt Ester Tyler, welcomes into her home Citizen Barlow, who is seeking absolution after his involvement in a death.

"The Intelligent Design of Jenny Chow" by Rolin Jones, produced by South Coast Repertory in Costa Mesa, Calif. Computer geek Jennifer Marcus builds a robot, Jenny Chow, and sends her to China to find Jennifer's birth mother. It's a poignant and comic look at one woman's search for identity.

"Intimate Apparel" by Lynn Nottage, produced by Baltimore's Center Stage and South Coast Repertory in Costa Mesa, Calif. A successful black seamstress named Esther thinks she finds love with a Panama Canal worker named George in 1905. The illiterate Esther, who woos George by mail with the help of two of her clients, eventually marries him, but the two find they barely know each other.

"James and Annie" by Warren Leight, produced by Cincinnati's Ensemble Theatre. On V-J Day in 1945, a black Naval officer falls for a white woman, and it's not smooth sailing for the interracial love between Annie Overton and James Walker.

"Lorca in a Green Dress" by Nilo Cruz, produced by Oregon Shakespeare Festival. After his death by firing squad, the Spanish poet and playwright Garcia Lorca enters a surreal purgatory where he relives scenes from his life to prepare for what comes next.

"The Love Song of J. Robert Oppenheimer" by Carson Kreitzer, produced by Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park. The father of the atomic bomb carries on a conversation with Lilith, Adam's first wife in Hebrew mythology, cast out because she refused to be subservient. Along the way, Oppenheimer's life and work are examined.

"We had an interesting array of submissions this year, as evidenced by the variety of the finalists," said Alec Harvey, chairman of the ATCA New Plays Committee. "The committee was impressed by the quality of work produced in 2003."

Since 1977, ATCA's largest award has recognized playwrights whose work premieres in venues outside New York City. Past honorees have included Lanford Wilson, Marsha Norman, Michael Weller, Jane Martin, August Wilson, Arthur Miller, Lisa Loomer, Mac Wellman, Adrienne Kennedy, Jon Robin Baitz, Donald Margulies, Lee Blessing and Horton Foote.

Last year's winner, Nilo Cruz, also won the Pulitzer Prize for his play "Anna in the Tropics."

This year, 18 eligible scripts were submitted by ATCA members at large, representing more than 250 regional media outlets. A 13-member committee of professional theatre critics reviewed and selected the top scripts.

Each of the plays must have been mounted by a professional theatre company within the last year, though production quality is not a factor in determining the winner.

ATCA consists of more than 250 theatre critics from media across the country, including newspapers, magazines, industry-related websites and radio and television stations. Founded in 1974, the association strives to raise the standards of theatre criticism and promote a greater public understanding of critics' functions and responsibilities. ATCA is a section of the International Association of Theatre Critics (IATC), a UNESCO-affiliated organization that sponsors seminars and congresses worldwide.

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