Julia Cho Wins 2010 Susan Smith Blackburn Prize for The Language Archive

Julia Cho has won the 2010 Susan Smith Blackburn Prize for her play The Language Archive. The honor, which carries a $20,000 award and a signed and numbered print by artist Willem de Kooning, was presented by director Doug Hughes in a private reception in New York on March 3.

The play, which will have its world premiere at South Coast Repertory, running March 25 – April 25, centers on a linguist who discovers words may not be enough as his marriage crumbles and his career encounters a certain silence of its own.

Cho has twice been a finalist for the Blackburn Prize for her plays The Piano Teacher and 99 Histories. Among her other plays are Durango, The Winchester House, BFE, and The Architecture of Loss. Her work has been produced at The Public Theater, The Vineyard Theatre, Long Wharf Theatre, Playwrights Horizons, South Coast Repertory, New York Theatre Workshop, East West Players, The Theatre@Boston Court, Theater Mu, and Silk Road Theatre Project among others.

Now in its 32nd year, The Susan Smith Blackburn Prize is given annually to recognize women from around the world who have written works of outstanding quality for the English-speaking theatre.