Sanaz Toossi is an American playwright and screenwriter. Her play English won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 2023. [1]
Of Iranian descent, Toossi is from Orange County, California; [2] her mother emigrated to the United States after the Iranian Revolution. [3] She is an only child, [4] and grew up a self-described "weird theatre kid". [5] She graduated from the Tisch School of the Arts in 2018, [3] having previously received her bachelor's degree from the University of California, Santa Barbara. [6] Her plays are drawn from personal experience, and the experiences of her family. [4] [3] Her play English received the Lucille Lortel Award for Outstanding Play in 2022. [7] In 2022 she received the Horton Foote Award from the Dramatists Guild of America [8] and also the award for Best New American Play by the Obie Awards. [9]
Suzan-Lori Parks is an American playwright, screenwriter, musician and novelist. Her play Topdog/Underdog won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 2002; Parks was the first African-American woman to receive the award for drama. She was named one of the 100 most influential people in the world by Time magazine in 2023.
John Guare is an American playwright and screenwriter. He is best known as the author of The House of Blue Leaves and Six Degrees of Separation.
Lisa D'Amour is a playwright, performer, and former Carnival Queen from New Orleans. D'Amour is an alumna of New Dramatists. Her play Detroit was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Drama.
Lynn Nottage is an American playwright whose work often focuses on the experience of working-class people, particularly working-class people who are Black. She has received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama twice: in 2009 for her play Ruined, and in 2017 for her play Sweat. She was the first woman to have won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama two times.
María Irene Fornés was a Cuban-American playwright, theater director, and teacher who worked in off-Broadway and experimental theater venues in the last four decades of the twentieth century. Her plays range widely in subject matter, but often depict characters with aspirations that belie their disadvantages. Fornés, who went by the name "Irene", received nine Obie Theatre Awards in various categories and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in Drama for 1990.
Liza Colón-Zayas is an American actress and playwright. She is best known for playing Tina Marrero on the comedy-drama series The Bear for which she won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series in 2024.
David Greenspan is an American actor and playwright. He is the recipient of six Obies, including an award in 2010 for Sustained Achievement.
Adrienne Kennedy is an American playwright. She is best known for Funnyhouse of a Negro, which premiered in 1964 and won an Obie Award. She won a lifetime Obie as well. In 2018 she was inducted into the Theater Hall of Fame.
Rolin B. Jones is an American playwright and television writer. His plays include The Intelligent Design of Jenny Chow, for which he was a 2006 Pulitzer Prize finalist, The Jammer, which first appeared at the New York Fringe Festival and features a hilarious dedication to the original lead actor, Kevin Rich, and Sovereignty. His work in television includes Showtime's Weeds and United States of Tara, NBC drama Friday Night Lights, HBO's Boardwalk Empire and Perry Mason, and AMC's Interview with the Vampire, for which he serves as showrunner.
Annie Baker is an American playwright and teacher who won the 2014 Pulitzer Prize for her play The Flick. Among her works are the Shirley, Vermont plays, which take place in the fictional town of Shirley: Circle Mirror Transformation, Nocturama, Body Awareness, and The Aliens. She was named a MacArthur Fellow in 2017.
Signature Theatre Company is an American theatre based in Manhattan, New York. It was founded in 1991 by James Houghton and is now led by Artistic Director Paige Evans. Signature is known for their season-long focus on one artist's work. It has been located in the Pershing Square Signature Center since 2012.
Tanya Barfield is an American playwright whose works have been presented both nationally and internationally.
John Douglas Thompson is an English-American actor. He is a Tony Award nominee and the recipient of two Drama Desk Awards, three Obie Awards, an Outer Critics Circle Award, and a Lucille Lortel Award.
The Flick is a play by Annie Baker that received the 2014 Pulitzer Prize for Drama and won the 2013 Obie Award for Playwriting. The Flick premiered Off-Broadway at Playwrights Horizons in 2013.
Samuel D. Hunter is an American playwright living in New York City.
Aleshea Harris is an American playwright, spoken word artist, author, educator, actor, performer, and screenwriter. Her play Is God Is won the American Playwriting Foundation's Relentless Award in 2016. In 2023, her play On Sugarland was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Drama.
Heidi Schreck is an American playwright, screenwriter, and actress from Wenatchee, Washington. Her play What the Constitution Means to Me, which she also performs in, was a finalist for the 2019 Pulitzer Prize for Drama and Tony Awards for 2019 Best Play and Best Actress in a Play.
Will Arbery is an American playwright, screenwriter and TV writer, known for his plays Heroes of the Fourth Turning, Plano, and Evanston Salt Costs Climbing. Heroes of the Fourth Turning was a finalist for the 2020 Pulitzer Prize for Drama and Arbery was the recipient of the 2020 Whiting Award for Drama.
Sylvia Khoury is an American writer and playwright.
English is a play by Sanaz Toossi. The play explores themes of language, identity, and cultural assimilation, set in an English-language classroom in Karaj, Iran, in 2008. The play won the 2023 Pulitzer Prize for Drama.