Lynn Nottage has won her second Pulitzer Prize in Drama for the play Sweat.
Hilton Als, the theater critic for the New Yorker, has been awarded the Pulitzer Prize in Criticism
The citation for Nottage’s Sweat reads:
“For a nuanced yet powerful drama that reminds audiences of the stacked deck still facing workers searching for the American dream.”
My review of Sweat:
Like Grapes of Wrath, Lynn Nottage’s Sweat offers a devastating look at social and economic breakdown, told not with rants or statistics, but through a riveting tale about good people in a bad situation. The characters in Sweat live in Reading, Pennsylvania, which 2010 U.S. Census data identified as the poorest city in America.
Nottage was a previous winner, in 2009, for her play “Ruined.”
The finalists for the Drama Pulitzer were
This year the jury for the Pulitzer Prize for Drama was:
Elysa Gardner (Chair)
(former) Entertainment Critic, USA Today
Annie Baker* (a Pulitzer winning playwright herself)
Playwright, New York, NY
Jesse Green
Theater Critic and Contributing Editor, New York (soon to be the co-chief theater critic at the New York Times)
Jonathan Kalb
Professor of Theatre, Hunter College, CUNY
Wendy Rosenfield
Theater Critic, Philadelphia Inquirer (now editor of Broad Street Review)
Was a thrill to chair this jury, with @JesseKGreen, @WendyRosenfield, @JonathanKalb and @AnnieNBaker, extraordinary writers. Congrats, all! https://t.co/G5kuF5mbcx
— Elysa Gardner (@ElysaGardner) April 10, 2017
1/1 Thank u good people for making my words shine #katewhoriskey @osfashland @PublicTheaterNY @SweatBroadway @Carlo_Alban @davis_khris
— Lynn Nottage (@Lynnbrooklyn) April 10, 2017
Thank u! @alison__wright @arenastage @travislemont @ReadingFilmFEST
— Lynn Nottage (@Lynnbrooklyn) April 10, 2017
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.)
Hamilton by Lin-Manuel Miranda
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.
