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Emerging playwright Laura Jacqmin is the recipient of the second annual Wasserstein Prize, established in memory of the esteemed playwright Wendy Wasserstein, who died in 2006.  The $25,000 prize is awarded for an outstanding script by a young woman who has not yet received national attention.  The prize is funded by the Educational Foundation of America.

 

Established in 2006 by the Dramatists Guild of America and the Educational Foundation of America in memory of their friend Wendy Wasserstein, a strong advocate for emerging women writers, the Wasserstein Prize is intended for a writer to whom $25,000 will make a substantial difference in a professional life.  It is the hope of the Guild and the Foundation that the prize will ease financial pressures on the recipient and provide her with national exposure and encouragement. 

 

Laura Jacqmin, 25, is a Chicago-based playwright. She is a resident playwright at Chicago Dramatists, a member of the New Voices Network (an affiliate of the Old Vic Theatre), and a co-founder of the Yale Playwrights Festival.  Her plays have been produced and developed by Victory Gardens Theater, Steppenwolf Theatre Company, Culture Project, the Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival, Aurora Theatre Company and the inaugural National New Play Network’s University Playwrights Workshop at the National Center for New Plays at Stanford University.

 

A graduate of Yale University and Ohio University’s MFA playwriting program, Jacqmin was a semifinalist for the 2008 P73 Playwriting Fellowship, a finalist for the 2007 Dorothy Silver Playwriting Competition and has earned commissions from Collaboraction and Victory Gardens Theater.  She is also the recipient of a 2006 Ohio University SEA research and development grant for her play 10 Virgins, which will receive its world premiere this May in Chicago Dramatists’ 2007-2008 season.  Her play entitled And when we awoke there was light and light was her entry for the Wasserstein Prize.

 

In addition to the $25,000 cash award, as the winner of the Wasserstein Prize, Laura Jacqmin will receive a complimentary renewal of her membership to the Dramatists Guild of America, the only membership organization dedicated to protecting the rights of playwrights, composers and lyricists.  She also will be given the opportunity to have a professionally cast and directed rehearsed reading in New York City, presented by Second Stage Theater.

 

Playwrights were nominated for the prize by leading theatrical practitioners from across the country knowledgeable about new plays and emerging playwrights.  Theatrical professionals, many of whom were friends and colleagues of Wendy Wasserstein, read and evaluated 21 plays for the prize this year.  This year’s final selection panel consisted of Andre Bishop, Stephen Graham, Beth Milles, Jonathan Reynolds, Carole Rothman and Linda Winer.