Talene Monahon Wins 2026 Horton Foote Prize for Meet the Cartozians

Talene Monahon has been awarded the 2026 Horton Foote Prize, which each year honors an American playwright for an original work of exceptional quality, for her play Meet the Cartozians.

Monahon will be honored at a private celebration on Monday, October 19th at New York’s Lotos Club, during which director David Cromer will present the $50,000 prize and a limited edition of Keith Carter’s photograph of Horton Foote, which is found in the permanent collection of the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, DC.

Meet the Cartozians, part historical drama and part satire, was nominated by Second Stage Theater, which presented the play’s off-Broadway premiere in November, 2025. Meet the Cartozians was also named a 2026 Pulitzer Prize finalist for Drama.

In the 1920s, an Armenian American man fights for legal recognition and a century later, a new generation embraces pop culture’s appetite for influence and fame. TheaterMania’s David Gordon wrote in his review of the play, “An intensely personal play that’s historical fiction at its shrewdest, Armenian American writer Monahon makes these thorny, dialectical, Facebook-thread debates about race, religion, and assimilation not just engaging but genuinely fun.”

This year’s artistic judges panel included the Prize’s honorary chair Tony winner Celia Keenan-Bolger, Ian Belknap, Obie winner Taylor Reynolds, Lizzie Stern, and Tony nominee Jiyoun Chang.

Every year the Horton Foote Prize Gratitude Gift is awarded to a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization that endeavors to have a positive impact through the work and art of theater, as chosen by the honorary chair. This year’s $10,000 gift will be awarded to Waterwell, founded in 2002 by two-time Tony nominee Arian Moayed and Drama Desk-nominated director Tom Ridgely, now led by artistic director Lee Sunday Evans.