The Judith Royer Award for Excellence in Playwriting is named in honor of Dr. Royer for her dedication to the development of new plays throughout her distinguished career. Dr. Royer is a producer, director and dramaturg with new play development programs sponsored by the NEA, Playwrights Theatre, Mark Taper Forum, and Theatre Gallery. She established the Kennedy Center/American College Theatre Festival’s playwriting program and is a founding member of ATHE. The Royer Award honors a new play marked by sophisticated and nuanced dramatic storytelling, compelling content, and the potential to make a major artistic impact on contemporary theatre.
This year’s award winner is:
Laura Maria Censabella
Paradise
Laura Maria Censabella's play Paradise (IRNE Award Best New Play, Ensemble Studio Theatre/Sloan Commission) premiered at Central Square Theatre (CST) in Boston, and received its L.A. premiere at the Odyssey Theatre (Viola Davis/Julius Tennon, producers). She then wrote the screenplay for Vicangelo Films. She won the $10,000 Saroyan/Paul Human Rights Playwriting Prize for Carla Cooks The War and three NYFA grants in Playwriting/Screenwriting. Her most recent EST/Sloan commissioned play Beyond Words premiered at CST in March. Laura is a recipient of the Distinguished University-Wide Teaching Award from the New School of Drama and is Director of the EST Playwrights Unit. Graduate of Yale.
The committee is also delighted to recognize the following playwright for their outstanding work:
HONORABLE MENTIONS
Bridgette Portman
Ageless
Bridgette Dutta Portman is a playwright and author from the San Francisco Bay Area, where she teaches composition and creative writing at UC Berkeley. Her plays have been staged and read locally, across the country, and overseas. She is president of the Board of Directors of the Pear Theatre in Mountain View, California and is a resident playwright with PlayGround San Francisco. She enjoys writing plays that involve science fiction and speculative elements as well as themes related to mental health, family, and the human relationship with mortality.
Lisa B. Thompson
The Black Feminist Guide to the Human Body
Lisa B. Thompson’s satirical comedies and poignant dramas explore Black middle-class life in the US. Her plays
Single Black Female, Underground, Monroe, The Mamalogues, and The Black Feminist Guide to the
Human Body have been produced Off-Broadway, throughout the US, and internationally. She also co-hosts and co-produces the NPR podcast Black Austin Matters about Black life, culture, and politics in Central Texas. Thompson is the Patton Professor of African and African Diaspora Studies at the University of Texas at Austin.
Hans Vermy
The W/hole Way Down
Hans Vermy is a writer, dramaturg and filmmaker currently teaching topics in theatre history and performance studies at UCLA and UCR. He writes plays for undergraduate actors. His scholarly work researches technologies of the theatre and immersive practices, focusing on the performance and animation of things. Most recently his work has appeared in the Routledge collection Experiential Theatres and as an official selection of the 2024 LA International Children’s Film Festival.
FINALISTS
- Progression by Christopher Adams
- Jane, Queen's Foole by Barbara Blatner
- Flor Underwater by Lori Felipe-Barkin
- Telling the Bees by Chandler Hubbard
- Lunch Break by Jack Cummings
- Cowgirl Katarungan's Recipe for Adobo by AJ Layague
- Muses by Julia Rae Maldonado
- The Consul, The Tramp, and America's Sweetheart by John Morogiello
- Stubbornness & Bone by Edwin Rivera-Arias
The Association of Theatre in Higher Education wishes to especially acknowledge the members of the Judith Royer Excellence in Playwriting Award Subcommittee. Thank you for your work supporting this award.
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