Lindsay-Abaire's Good People was chosen as the outstanding new American play. The work, which played Broadway's Samuel J. Friedman Theatre, revolves around a working-class South Boston woman who reconnects with her upper-class former high-school classmate.

Wallace's The Liquid Plain, which received the award for promising new American play, is about the mysterious identities of two runaway slaves and a sailor. It is scheduled to have its premiere next July at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival.

The judges for the 2012 prize were the director Michael Wilson; Casey Childs, the executive producer of Primary Stages; Paige Evans, the artistic director of Lincoln Center Theater's LCT3 series; and Evan Yionoulis, the resident director at Yale Repertory Theater.

To be nominated for the Foote prize, playwrights must have written at least four original full-length plays which have been produced by professional theaters.