BSC Announces Winners 2021 Bonnie & Terry Burnam New Play Award
Information from Press release from Barrington Stage Company (BSC), under the leadership of Founder/Artistic Director Julianne Boyd, is pleased to announce the winners of the 2021 Bonnie and Terry Burman New Play Award. The award, founded in 2018, supports new, bold voices for the American theatre and is presented to unproduced full-length works that are wholly original and not adaptations or translations of existing works.
The 2021 Grand Prize winner is Daniella De Jesús for her play, Get Your Pink Hands Off Me Sucka and Give Me Back. She will receive a cash prize of $25,000, a staged reading and a possible full production of her play at Barrington Stage Company.
Daniella De Jesús is an actor/writer from Bushwick, Brooklyn. A member of The Public Theater’s 2018-19 Emerging Writers Group, her plays include Mambo Sauce (The New Group Off Stage, semi-finalist for Clubbed Thumb’s 2018 commission), Pa’ Ti Tengo De Todo (The Public Theater’s Spotlight Series), Untitled Puppet Show (commissioned by The Public Theater for Play At Home) and The Thief Cometh (United SoloFestival). She’s also the creator of the new web series “Talk To Me” on IGTV. As an actor, she is best known for her role as Zirconia on Netflix’s “Orange is the New Black.” De Jesús is a graduate of NYU Tisch School of the Arts with a BFA in Drama.
The Burman Award is also presenting $5,000 prizes to Miki Kim for her play.
Miki Kim is a native Hawai’ian playwright. She received an MFA from the University of California, San Diego. Her play, A Tita, ABroad, a one-woman show about moving to the continental United States from Hawai’i, was the recipient of two Los Angeles Dramalogue awards. Her screenplay, Fixing Jane, was a finalist in VisionFest and the Houston Comedy Festival. As an actor, she has worked with theatres such as the Milwaukee Rep and the California Shakespeare Festival. She has studied with the Suzuki Theatre Company in Japan, but Miki’s wildest acting credit is Lin Tan Cang, the wife of Braddock (Chuck Norris) in Braddock: Missing in Action III. After the Fall was selected for a staged reading at the Blank Theatre in Hollywood, California and was also the winner of the 2019 Austin Film Festival
After the Fall, and Laura Winters for her play, Just the Melody. Both plays will also receive staged readings at BSC.
Laura Winters is a playwright and screenwriter working in NYC and LA. Full-length plays include Just the Melody (formerly Biting Hands - Relentless Award Honorable Mention, Drama League Next Stage Residency through director Ashley Brooke Monroe, Princess Grace Award Semi-Finalist, SPACE at Ryder Farm Creative Residency Finalist, Semi-Finalist for Berkeley Rep’s Ground Floor), Gonzo (Burman New Play Award Semi-Finalist, Rough Draft Festival, Corkscrew), Emerson Losing Her “Miand” (Semi-Finalist in The Bechdel Test Festival, NY Winterfest Dixon Place), Coronation (Pete’s Candy Store, Bechdel Group) and a full-length children’s play Space Mission #5379: Saving Rachel, Nevada (world premiere East Valley Children's Theatre, winner of Arizona Theatre Excellence Award for Best Original Script).
Additional finalists included Lyons Pride by Bleu Beckford-Burrell, Flood by Mashuq Mushtaq Deen, You’re Crazy by Steph Del Rosso, Campaign by Laura Jacqmin, 2020: a going away party play by Keyanna Khatiblou and Spare Rib by Winter Miller.
Founder/Artistic Director Julianne Boyd said.
“It’s crucial to all of us at Barrington Stage to help develop new voices and new plays,” That’s why the Bonnie and Terry Burman New Play Award is especially welcome, by supporting new, original plays by emerging artists. We look forward to the readings of the winning plays and hearing more from these exciting and promising talents.”
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