Playwright Sarah Ruhl Wins MacArthur Grant

Playwright Sarah Ruhl, whose critically acclaimed play The Clean House will be seen next month at Lincoln Center’s Mitzi Newhouse Theatre, is one of the 25 recipients of this year’s John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation grants. Like all the winners, Ruhl will receive five annual checks of $100,000 to be spent as she chooses.

Ruhl won the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize and was a Pulitzer Prize finalist for The Clean House, which will star Vanessa Aspillaga, Blair Brown, Jill Clayburgh, John Dossett, and Concetta Tomei at Lincoln Center. The play debuted at Yale Repertory Theatre, and has been seen at numerous regional theaters. Ruhl’s other works include Passion Play, which premiered last season at Arena Stage, and Eurydice, which will begin performances on September 22 at Yale Repertory Theatre in New Haven.

Unlike other awards, the MacArthurs have no nominating committee nor are names submitted; the winners are simply chosen by the grants’ administrators. Other winners of this year’s MacArthur grants, informally known as “genius awards,” include jazz violinist Regina Carter, saxophonist John Zorn, author Adrian Nicole LeBlanc, visual artist Anna Shuleit, pianist Terence Tao, and short story writer George Saunders.