Theater News

Celia Keenan-Bolger, Maria Dizzia, and More to Honor Sarah Ruhl

Ruhl will receive the 2016 Steinberg Distinguished Playwright Award.

Celia Keenan-Bolger in a scene from Sarah Ruhl's The Oldest Boy at Lincoln Center Theater.
Celia Keenan-Bolger in a scene from Sarah Ruhl's The Oldest Boy at Lincoln Center Theater.
(© T. Charles Erickson)

Playwright Sarah Ruhl will be honored with the 2016 Steinberg Distinguished Playwright Award, presented by the Harold and Mimi Steinberg Charitable Trust, on Monday, November 14, at Lincoln Center Theater’s Mitzi E. Newhouse Theater.

The evening will feature remarks by Lynne Meadow, artistic director of Manhattan Theatre Club; James Lundy of Yale Repertory Theatre; and Todd London, executive director and professor at University of Washington's School of Drama. Performances from Ruhl's work will follow.

Celia Keenan-Bolger will perform the epilogue from The Oldest Boy; Blair Brown, Jessica Hecht, and Polly Noonan will perform essays from 100 Essays I Don't Have Time to Write; Maria Dizzia and Joseph J. Parks, original cast members from the off-Broadway production of Eurydice, will perform a scene from the show; and Kathleen Chalfant will perform a monologue from For Peter Pan on Her 70th Birthday.

The Steinberg Distinguished Playwright Award, which comes with a cash prize of $200,000, is presented biennially to honor and encourage the artistic excellence and achievement of an American playwright whose body of work has made significant contributions to the American theatre. Ruhl's plays include The Clean House, Dead Man's Cell Phone, Passion Play, and others.