Lin-Manuel Miranda has won the 2016 Pulitzer Prize in Drama for his musical “Hamilton.”
The choice was widely expected. In my first review of Hamilton, Off Broadway, I wrote “Hamilton” is Lin-Manuel Miranda’s groundbreaking new musical about the life and times of the Founding Father whose face is on the ten dollar bill.
The finalists were Gloria by Branden Jacobs-Jenkins and The Humans by Stephen Karam.
Peter Marks (Chair)
Drama critic, The Washington Post
Ayad Akhtar (He won the Pulitzer in Drama in 2013 for Disgraced)
Playwright, New York City
Stephanie Arnold
Author, professor emerita of theatre, Lewis & Clark College, Portland, OR
Anne Marie Welsh
Theater critic, script editor, San Diego, CA
Linda Winer
Drama critic, Newsday, Long Island, NY
Grateful grateful grateful grateful grateful grateful grateful grateful grateful grateful grateful grateful grateful grateful great full
— Lin-Manuel Miranda (@Lin_Manuel) April 18, 2016
Hamilton is just the ninth musical to with the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in the award’s 100-year history. The others were: Of Thee I Sing (1933), South Pacific (1950), Fiorello! (1960), How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying (1962), A Chorus Line (1976), Sunday in the Park with George (1985), Rent (1996), and Next to Normal (2010).
Below is the complete list of prior Pulitzer Drama winners, with links to their citations (Since 1983, the Pulitzers have made public the finalists, which has become its own form of accolade.)
Between Riverside and Crazy, by Stephen Adly Guirgis
A nuanced, beautifully written play about a retired police officer faced with eviction that uses dark comedy to confront questions of life and death.
Finalists:
The Flick, by Annie Baker
A thoughtful drama with well-crafted characters that focuses on three employees of a Massachusetts art-house movie theater, rendering lives rarely seen on the stage.
Finalists:
Disgraced, by Ayad Akhtar
A moving play that depicts a successful corporate lawyer painfully forced to consider why he has for so long camouflaged his Pakistani Muslim heritage.
Water by the Spoonful, by Quiara Alegría Hudes
An imaginative play about the search for meaning by a returning Iraq war veteran working in a sandwich shop in his hometown of Philadelphia.
Clybourne Park, by Bruce Norris
For “Clybourne Park,” a powerful work whose memorable characters speak in witty and perceptive ways to America’s sometimes toxic struggle with race and class consciousness.
Next to Normal, by Tom Kitt and Brian Yorkey
A powerful rock musical that grapples with mental illness in a suburban family and expands the scope of subject matter for musicals.
Ruined, by Lynn Nottage
A searing drama set in chaotic Congo that compels audiences to face the horror of wartime rape and brutality while still finding affirmation of life and hope amid hopelessness.
