Avery Deutsch Wins 2025 Neukom Playwriting Award for THE AGE OF MARY

Northern Stage has announced The Age of Mary by New York–based playwright Avery Deutsch as the recipient of the 2025 Neukom Institute Literary Arts Award for Playwriting, presented in partnership with the Neukom Institute for Computational Science at Dartmouth College. Tony-nominated director Anne Kauffman will lead the development process and prepare the script for public presentation.

Each year, the award supports a new theatrical work that explores the relationship between humanity and technology. For Northern Stage, the program represents an ongoing investment in the future of American theater, bringing playwrights into a collaborative development process and inviting audiences to experience a play while it is still taking shape.

In The Age of Mary, an actress in her 70s is cast as a teenager in a motion-capture blockbuster film. As Mary and the three people around her navigate a physical set built to create a digital world, they are forced to confront the growing distance between who they are, who they perform, and how technology reshapes both.

"I'm absolutely thrilled to have received the Neukom Literary Arts Award for Playwriting," Deutsch says. "I am so looking forward to working on my play with Northern Stage and Dartmouth. I feel honored that The Age of Mary was selected and can't wait to get to work."

Through a weeklong residency and workshop process, Northern Stage artists and collaborators will help bring the script to life ahead of two public readings this spring. The program allows audiences to engage directly with new work while giving playwrights space to experiment and revise the play alongside a creative team.

Established in 2018, the Neukom Literary Arts Award is a collaboration between Northern Stage, the Neukom Institute, and the Dartmouth Department of Theater. This year's selection was made from a record-breaking 161 submissions. Honorable mentions include Headless Nebraska by Chandler Hubbard, Howard Waffleman's Love Life by Scooter Pietsch, and Smart by Mary Hamilton.

"The Age of Mary explores the uncanny world of motion-capture filmmaking, an art form where the line between the human and digital worlds is incredibly thin,” said Sarah Wansley, associate artistic director at Northern Stage. “This unique setting offers thrilling theatrical possibilities while serving as an imaginative entry point into how technology shapes our experiences of aging, relationships, and our own bodies. Deutsch's writing elevates contemporary dialogue into poetry.”

The play, selected through a blind submission process, also recently received a Terrence McNally New Works Incubator Award from Rattlestick Theater in New York City. The Neukom Award includes a $5,000 prize and culminates in two public readings open to the community.

The first reading will take place at 2:00 PM on Saturday, April 25 in Filene Auditorium at Moore Hall on the Dartmouth campus. The second reading will be held at 2:00 PM on Sunday, April 26 at the Byrne Theatre in the Barrette Center for the Arts in White River Junction.

Through programs like the Neukom Award, Northern Stage continues to expand its role as a home for artists developing new plays and a place where audiences can encounter stories at the earliest stage of their lives onstage.

"I continue to be staggered by, and grateful for, our collaborative effort and the volume of extraordinary work we are able to surface through this prize,” said Dan Rockmore, director of the Neukom Institute and a professor of mathematics and computer science who created the award. “Deutsch's play shines a bright light on the complicated dissonances between digital and material lives, and on the challenge of trying to live fully in both. Anyone alive today will recognize the intensity and peculiarity of that experience.”

The Age of Mary

By Avery Deutsch

Saturday, April 25, 2:00 PM (FREE)
Filene Auditorium in Moore Hall | 3 Maynard St, Hanover, NH 03755

Sunday, April 26, 2:00 PM ($15)
Byrne Theatre in the Barrette Center for the Arts at Northern Stage | 74 Gates St, White River Junction, VT 05001