Theater News

Rajiv Joseph Wins Paula Vogel Playwriting Award

Rajiv Joseph
(© Second Stage)
Rajiv Joseph
(© Second Stage)

Rajiv Joseph has been awarded the Vineyard Theatre’s 2008 Paula Vogel Playwriting Award, given to an emerging playwright. The award comes with a cash prize, artistic development support, and a staged reading of the recipient’s work.

Joseph’s plays include Animals Out of Paper (to be produced by Second Stage Theatre Uptown this summer), Huck and Holden, Bengal Tiger in the Bagdhad Zoo, The Leopard and the Fox, and All This Intimacy.

The award is named in honor of playwright and teacher Paula Vogel — whose play How I Learned to Drive debuted at The Vineyard in 1997, winning the Pulitzer Prize for Drama. Vogel was recently appointed as the new Chair of the MFA Playwriting Program at Yale School of Drama, following more than 20 years heading the MFA Playwriting program at Brown University.

Joseph is the second playwright to win this award. The previous recipient was Tarell Alvin McCraney, author of The Brothers Size, whose play Wig Out! is currently being developed by The Vineyard.

For more information, visit www.vineyardtheatre.org.