Robert O'Hara and Penelope Skinner Receive Berwin Lee Playwrights Award
(© David Gordon)
Penelope Skinner (The Village Bike, Linda) and Robert O'Hara (Bootycandy, Barbecue) are the winners of the third Berwin Lee Playwrights Award. The Berwin Lee Award was created to foster and promote the craft of playwriting in both the United States and the United Kingdom and to encourage the writing and production of plays. Skinner is this year's U.K. winner, while O'Hara takes the New York prize.
Berwin Lee grants are awarded to playwrights whose work has not yet been produced on Broadway or in the West End. Potential recipients are identified through recommendations from chosen theater companies in New York and London, and recommendations from Berwin Lee’s advisory board, which includes Maria Arena Bell, Sandra Brant, Dominic Cooke, Gary Garrison, Joyce Hytner, Cherry Jones, Mel Kenyon, Donna Murphy, and John Tiffany.
Winners receive a $30,000 award in the form of a commission, with no specific time frame attached so that they have the freedom to write the plays they want to write without restriction. Past recipients include Bathsheba Doran (U.S. recipient), Lucy Kirkwood (U.K. recipient), Stephen Karam (U.S. recipient), and Zinnie Harris (U.K. recipient).
