The Yale Drama Series competition, which recognizes full-length, unpublished plays in English, has announced Janine Nabers the winner of its 2014 prize.
Nabers was chosen by judge Marsha Norman, the Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright of ‘night, Mother, for her commissioned play Serial Black Face. Nabers’ work centers on a mother-daughter relationship in Atlanta in 1979, at the beginning of a two-year string of murders that targeted black children in that city.
In a statement, Norman commented, “Janine Nabers is an extraordinary writer — powerful and funny and brave. … This work is unsettling to read, but even as you read it, you know it is true. The crackling dialogue and the unswerving honesty are beautiful to experience.”
The Yale prize comes with a $10,000 cash prize, publication by Yale University Press, and a reading at Lincoln Center’s Clair Tow Theater.
[h/t NYT]
