Theater News

2005 Richard Rodgers Award Winners Announced

The winners of the 2005 Richard Rodgers Awards competition for musical theater have been announced by the American Academy of Arts and Letters, as follows:

Bringers, by Dave Hudson and Paul Libman, based on Carl Sandburg’s Putlizer Prize-winning poetry volume Cornhuskers, explores the cycle of life in the Midwest and the various styles of American music from folk to jazz. Broadcast, by Nathin Christensen and Scott Murphy, tells the history of radio from the wireless telegraph to the advent of television. Red, by Brian Lowdermilk and Marcus Stevens, examines the events leading to the executions of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg as seen through the eyes of comedian Lenny Bruce.

All three musicals will be given staged readings by non-profit New York City theaters in 2005. The winners were chosen by a seven-member jury consisting of Lynn Ahrens, Jack Beeson, Sheldon Harnick, Richard Maltby, Jeanine Tesori, John Weidman, and Stephen Sondheim (chairman).