The American Theatre Critics Association announced March 3 that Michele Lowe’s world premiere play Victoria Musica, presented last fall at Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park, is one of six finalists for the Steinberg/American Theatre Critics Association New Play Award. The award and two citations will be presented later this month at Actors Theatre of Louisville during the Humana Festival of New American Plays. The award includes a commemorative plaque and a cash prize of $25,000; citations carry prizes of $7,500 each.—-
Lowe actually has two plays in the running, the first time a playwright has been a independently nominated for two plays in one season let alone become a finalist for both.
Selected as one of several premieres for the Playhouse’s 50th anniversary season, Victoria Musica opened a four-week run in September 2009 in the Shelterhouse Theatre. The play tells of a music critic obsessed to find the truth behind the possibility that a world-renowned cellist faked her extraordinary recordings before her death. The result is an examination of the true nature of artistry and the pressures accompanying fame. (Photo is of Mariann Mayberry, who played the cellist.)
Her second nominated play is Inana, which premiered in January 2009 at the Denver Center Theatre Company’s Colorado New Plays Summit. It depicts the Iraqi curator of the antiquities museum in Mosul who has taken his bride on a London honeymoon just before the American invasion. It appears he’s smuggled an iconic statue out of the country to preserve it from the imminent carnage of war, but appearances prove to be deceiving.
The other four nominated plays are Equivocation by Bill Cain (premiered at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival), Legacy of Light by Karen Zacharias (premiered by Arena Stage in Washington, D.C.), Perfect Mendacity by Jason Wells (premiered by Asolo Repertory Theatre in Sarasota, Fla.) and Time Stands Still by Donald Margulies (premiered by Geffen Playhouse in Los Angeles).
Since the 1977 inception of ATCA’s New Play Award, honorees have included Lanford Wilson, Marsha Norman, August Wilson, Jane Martin, Arthur Miller, Mac Wellman, Adrienne Kennedy, Donald Margulies, Lynn Nottage, Horton Foote, Moises Kaufman and Craig Lucas. Last year’s honoree was E.M. Lewis for Song of Extinction.
This article appears in Mar 3-9, 2010.
