Katori Hall Wins 2010 Susan Smith Blackburn Prize for Hurt Village

The 2010 Susan Smith Blackburn Prize has been awarded to Katori Hall for her play Hurt Village. Now in its 33rd year, the prize is given annually to recognize outstanding works written by women for the English-speaking theater. Hall received $20,000 and a signed print by Willem de Kooning at a private reception held in New York on February 28.

Based on a real-life housing project, Hurt Village explores in vivid and brutal detail the lives of poor and invisible Americans, focusing on a young African-American man who returns from fighting in Iraq to find that his home is being demolished. The play was nominated by off-Broadway's Signature Theatre Company.

The Memphis-born playwright is also the author of Hoodoo Love, Remembrance and The Mountaintop, which won the 2010 Olivier Award for Best New Play and is headed to Broadway in fall 2011 in a production that will reportedly star Halle Berry and Samuel L. Jackson.

In addition to Hall, finalists for this year’s Susan Smith Blackburn Prize included Lisa D’Amour for Detroit, Sam Burns for Not the Worst Place, Frances Ya-Chu Cowhig for Lidless, Georgia Fitch for Fit and Proper People, Lisa Kron for In the Wake, Tamsin Oglesby for Really Old, Like 45, Anne Washburn for Mr. Burns: A Post-Electric Play, Joy Wilkinson for The Golden Age and Alexandra Wood for The Andes.