The eighth annual recipient of Leah Ryan’s Fund for Emerging Women Writers (FEWW) has been announced. According to a press release from the fund, playwright and screenwriter Susan Soon He Stanton has won for her play “We, The Invisibles.” Stanton, selected from almost 400 applicants, was named the winner at this year’s Lilly Awards.
Named for writer and “Bleach” playwright Leah Ryan, the annual FEWW prize was launched in 2010 to “encourage and support the work of women writers,” its website details. “It is the purpose of the prize to perpetuate the integrity, compassion, and creativity that Leah herself possessed and inspired in others.”
Stanton’s play is an examination gender, race, class, and the imbalance of power. “In 2011, the director of the International Monetary Fund was accused of sexual assault by a hotel maid, Nafissatou Diallo, but all charges were dismissed,” the press release summarizes. “‘We, The Invisibles’ introduces hotel workers like Diallo who have come to New York from all over the globe.”
Along with $2,500, FEWW will help Stanton find the time and additional support she needs to finish developing “We, The Invisibles.” FEWW is also organizing a public reading of the play this fall.
Stanton’s previous plays include “Today Is My Birthday,” “Seek,” “The Things Are Against Us,” and “TAKARAZUKA!!!” Hailing from Aiea, Hawai’i, she is an alumna of NYU Tisch’s Dramatic Writing program and Yale School of Drama, and a recipient of the Audrey Woods Fellowship and the Eugene O’Neill Memorial Scholarship. Stanton currently works as a staff writer on the upcoming HBO political drama “Succession.”