Yale Bulletin and Calendar

March 2, 2007|Volume 35, Number 20

Drama student Alvin McCraney wins
first annual Vogel Playwriting Award

Yale School of Drama student Tarell Alvin McCraney has won the first annual Paula Vogel Playwriting Award from the Vineyard Theatre in New York City.

McCraney is a third-year M.F.A. student in playwriting and author of the acclaimed play "The Brothers Size," a drama that was performed at the Public Theater during this winter's Under the Radar Festival and in London last summer. According to a review by Jason Zinoman in The New York Times, the play is "an absorbing and emotionally resonant drama set in the bayou country of Louisiana and loosely based on West African myth. ... There is evidence in his richly drawn characters and colloquial poetry, which manages to sound both epic and rooted in a specific place, to suggest that he has a long career ahead of him."

An actor as well as a playwright, McCraney is also the author of "Without/Sin," "Run, Mourners, Run" and "In the Red and Brown Water."

"Tarell McCraney is a remarkable young man of the theater, a playwright of unique and prodigious gifts, and I am delighted to see his efforts recognized and rewarded," says James Bundy, dean of the School of Drama. "The more he writes for the American stage, the more all of us who care about its future will benefit... ."

The Vogel Award, to be given annually by the Vineyard Theatre to "an emerging playwright of exceptional promise," was named in honor of Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright and teacher Paula Vogel. The award includes a cash prize and a staged reading of the recipient's work.

A non-profit, off-Broadway company under the guidance of artistic director Douglas Aibel, the Vineyard Theatre is committed to nurturing the work of emerging playwrights and composers while providing established artists with a supportive environment in which to experiment.

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