Children’s Theatre Company Wins Joyce Award for Naomi Iizuka’s The Last Firefly

Children’s Theatre Company (CTC) has received a $50,000 Joyce Award to support Naomi Iizuka’s The Last Firefly. The prizes are designed to recognize exceptional new works by artists of color.

Based on Japanese folktales, The Last Firefly will introduce young audiences to traditional Japanese literature and fairytales. When produced, the piece will incorporate theatrical elements of Kabuki theatre and be suitable for children five to eight years old. The Last Firefly is scheduled for a workshop to be held in February 2011, in partnership with Carleton College and its Arts Festival “The Art of Sight, Sound, and Heart: Visualizing Japanese Theater.” It is anticipated that the play will premiere during CTC’s 2013 season.

Iizuka’s other plays include 36 Views, Ghostwritten, Aloha, Say the Pretty Girls, At the Vanishing Point, Freak, Language of Angels, and Polaroid Stories. Her work has been seen at such theaters as
the John F. Kennedy Center for Performing Arts, Huntington Theatre, Actors’ Theatre of Louisville, Berkeley Repertory Theater, the Joseph Papp Public Theater/New York Shakespeare Festival, the Brooklyn Academy of Music’s “Next Wave Festival” and the Goodman Theatre.