Playwright Chloe Moss Receives Blackburn Prize; Lucinda Coxon Honored

British playwright Chloe Moss has received the 2009 Susan Smith Blackburn Prize for her critically acclaimed play This Wide Night. Given annually to recognize women from around the world who have written works of outstanding quality for the English-speaking theater, the honor was presented at a reception in London on February 25, by Sigourney Weaver, who presented Moss with an award of $20,000 and a signed and numbered print by artist Willem de Kooning. Weaver also presented a Special Commendation award of $5,000 to British playwright Lucinda Coxon for Happy Now?, and awarded $1,000 to a list of finalists, including four American playwrights.

A tender portrayal of two women trying to start again, This Wide Night is described by Moss as a work that “explores the importance and uniqueness of relationships formed in prison: how they can, or perhaps cannot, exist in another context; and also resettlement—when ‘freedom’ can actually feel like a very bleak and frightening prospect.” The play was commissioned and produced by Clean Break and premiered at The Soho Theatre, London, followed by a regional tour to Live Theatre Newcastle, and Drum Theatre, Plymouth, as well as a tour to 4 women’s prisons.

A darkly comic take on contemporary life and how to survive it, Coxon’s Happy Now? is about a woman’s struggle to have it all - family, personal freedom, fidelity and career. The play enjoyed a sold-out run in its acclaimed premiere at the Royal National Theatre, and received its U.S. premiere at Yale Repertory Theater. It was accorded the Writer's Guild of Great Britain 2008 Best Play Award, and will receive its New York premiere at Primary Stages in January 2010.

The list of 2009 finalists for this year’s Blackburn Prize also includes Anupama Chandrasekhar for Free Outgoing India, Ann Marie Healy for Once We Felt U.S., Michele Lowe’s Inana U.S., Elizabeth Meriwether for Oliver! U.S., Lynn Nottage for Ruined U.S., Kaite O'Reilly for The Almond and the Seahorse Wales, Amy Rosenthal for On The Rocks England and Esther Wilson for Ten Tiny Toes England.

In addition to Weaver, the international panel of judges for the 2009 Susan Smith Blackburn Prize awards includes Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright, Edward Albee A Delicate Balance, Seascape, Three Tall Women; noted British playwright and director, Peter Gill; lauded British actress Jenny Jules currently in rehearsal at the National Theatre for Wole Soyinka’s Death and the King’s Horseman; McCarter Theatre artistic director and award-winning playwright, Emily Mann; and Genista McIntosh, Executive Director of the Royal National Theatre for many years and currently a Trustee of the Theatres Trust.

The Susan Smith Blackburn Prize reflects the values and interests of Susan Smith Blackburn, noted American actress and writer who lived in London during the last 15 years of her life. She died in 1977 at the age of 42. Over 300 plays have been chosen as finalists since the prize was instituted in 1977. Over 60 of them are frequently produced in the United States today. Six Blackburn finalist plays have gone on to win the Pulitzer Prize in Drama. The authors of those plays - Margaret Edson, Beth Henley, Marsha Norman, Suzan-Lori Parks, Paula Vogel and Wendy Wasserstein - are the only women to have done so since the Blackburn Prize was first established.