The Laurents / Hatcher Foundation Award for Playwriting Is Created

Tony Award-winning playwright and director Arthur Laurents and his partner Tom Hatcher are the namesakes for the new Laurents / Hatcher Foundation Award. The prize is the first major award for playwriting to be named in honor of a gay couple.

The award will be made for an unproduced, full-length play of social relevance by an emerging American playwright. It will carry both a $50,000 cash award to the selected playwright and a grant of $100,000 that will go directly towards the production costs of the play’s premiere at a nonprofit theater.

Submissions for the inaugural Laurents / Hatcher Foundation Award will be accepted from invited applicants only, between June 15, 2010 and September 15, 2010 and reviewed by a panel chosen by the trustees of the foundation.

Laurents is currently represented on Broadway as both writer and director with West Side Story. Among his other theater credits are the play The Home of the Brave and the musical Gypsy, for which he wrote the book. His screenplays include The Way We Were, The Turning Point, and Alfred Hitchcock’s Rope.

Hatcher, who died in October 2006, began his career as an actor but moved into real estate as a contractor and then as a developer.