Island wins the 2024 Lee Playwriting Prize for New Canadian Plays

Friends, I am thrilled and honoured to share that my play Island is the winner of the 2024 Lee Playwriting Prize for New Canadian Plays.

Of Island, selection committee chair Kathleen Weiss writes, “The jury responded to Island so strongly because of its mystery and beauty. It is a piece of great complexity with characters who live in the future and the present — characters who live in the present and the past but who, as José says, ‘live in their respective time and space, but are also here, with us, and with each other, in our time and our space . . .’ A mere three characters embody a startling range of human experience and are ultimately deeply compassionate despite their innate flaws. The action resides in a series of shifting realities and the language of the play is brutal, lyrical, and true.”

Among the many good people and organizations that supported Island’s development are Kathleen Flaherty and Joanna Garfinkel at Playwrights Theatre Centre, the Banff Playwrights Lab, Tarragon Theatre, and the Canada Council for the Arts.

The Lee Prize is administered by the Drama Department at the University of Alberta, which is located in Edmonton, Treaty 6/Métis territory, a place that hosted a great many formative experiences in my theatre practice.

Read the full press release here: https://www.ualberta.ca/en/drama/about/lee-playwright-in-residence/announcing-the-2024-lee-playwriting-prize-for-new-canadian-plays.html

So much gratitude…