Legendary playwright/director Maria Irene Fornes and the highly honored dramatist Tony Kushner are the recipients of this year's PEN/Laura Pels Foundation Awards for Drama. Part of the 2002 PEN Literary Awards, the honors will be presented on Mon., May 20 at Lincoln Center's Walter Reade Theater. PEN is the national association of literary writers.
Announced by Joel Conarroe, president of PEN American Center, and LuAnn Walther, chair of the PEN Awards Committee, the annual awards go to a "master American dramatist" (Fornes) and "an American playwright in mid-career" (Kushner).
Fornes was born in Havana, Cuba, and her first play, "Tango Palace," was produced Off-Off-Broadway in 1961. Over the years, she has received awards and grants from the NEA, the Rockefeller Foundation, the Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, and the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters. More recently, the Signature Theater Company devoted its 1999-2000 season to Fornes, capping things off with the world premiere of "Letters From Cuba," which brought Fornes an unprecedented ninth Obie Award.
In 1993, Kushner received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama and the Tony Award for Best Play for "Millennium Approaches," the first part of "Angels in America." In 1994, Kushner won his second consecutive Tony for the second installment, "Perestroika." Kushner's most recent New York production was the rapturously received "Homebody/Kabul" at New York Theatre Workshop.
Fornes receives a specially commissioned artwork, Kushner a $5,000 stipend. This year's judges for the awards were fellow playwrights Richard Foreman, Peter Parnell, and Paula Vogel.
York Fetes Mackintosh
Producer Cameron Mackintosh has been tapped to receive the 12th annual Oscar Hammerstein Award on June 3. The York Theatre Company will make the presentation during a celebration featuring performances from many Broadway and Off-Broadway stars.
Commemorating lifetime achievement in the musical theatre, the award was created by York's founding artistic director Janet Hays Walker. Past recipients include: David Merrick, Stephen Sondheim, Stephen Schwartz, Harold Prince, Jerry Herman, Cy Coleman, and John Kander and Fred Ebb.