'Ruined' Takes Pulitzer

Ruined, Lynn Nottage's searing drama about a group of women caught in the crossfire of a civil war in the Congo, is the winner of the 2009 Pulitzer Prize for Drama. The play is a co-production of Manhattan Theatre Club and the Goodman Theatre of Chicago and is currently running at MTC's space at City Center Stage I through May 10.

Nottage is the second African-American woman playwright to win the Pulitzer; the first was Suzan-Lori Parks for Topdog/Underdog in 2001. Nottage's previous works include Intimate Apparel (winner of the 2004 New York Drama Critics Circle Award for best play), Fabulation, and Crumbles from the Table of Joy.

The other Pulitzer finalists were Becky Shaw by Gina Gionfriddo, which recently ended its Off-Broadway run at Second Stage, and In the Heights by Lin-Manuel Miranda and Quiara Alegria Hudes, currently playing on Broadway and winner of the 2008 Tony Award for best musical. The Pulitzer judges this year were theatre critic Dominic Paptola of the St. Paul Pioneer Press (chair); John M. Clum, chair of the department of theatre studies, Duke University; theatre critic Jim Hebert, San Diego Times-Union; playwright David Henry Hwang; and theatre critic Linda Weiner, Newsday.

The award includes a $10,000 prize and covers productions opening in the United States between Jan. 1 and Dec. 31, 2008.