James Still Named Winner of 2026 Stanley Drama Award for HAUNT ME

Wagner College Theatre has revealed that James Still is the winner of the 2026 Stanley Drama Award for, Haunt Me. As fiction and reality blur onstage, Haunt Me becomes a surreal, compassionate exploration of identity, memory, and creation, revealing that the most terrifying story may be one's own life. Best-selling horror writer Ellery du Trent begins to vanish into the very novel she's writing, aided-and increasingly manipulated-by an ambitious AI assistant named MUSE.

The first runner-up is Netta & Ru by Lisa Langford, and the second runner-up is The Henry Clyde Canning Murder House by Christian Missonak. The award ceremony will take place at The Players in New York City on Saturday, February 28, 2026, at 6:30 PM. The event will feature a short scene from the winning play, directed by Professor Mickey Tennenbaum and performed by members of the Wagner College Theatre community.

ABOUT THE STANLEY DRAMA AWARD

The Stanley Drama Award was established in 1957 by Staten Island philanthropist Alma Guyon Timolat Stanley and endowed through the Stanley-Timolat Foundation to encourage and support aspiring playwrights. The national Stanley Award competition is administered by the Wagner College Theatre program. The Stanley Award carries with it a monetary prize along with the distinction of joining the company of past Stanley winners, including Terrence McNally, Adrienne Kennedy, Lonne Elder III, and Jonathan Larson.

THE WINNER

HAUNT ME Best-selling horror writer Ellery du Trent - famous for her appetite of scaring readers to death - finds herself living her own horror story as she begins disappearing inside the novel she's trying to write with the unwelcome assistance from an AI program named MUSE. Ellery is not a fan of technology (she's proud of her old flip phone) and MUSE turns out to be more ambitious than settling on playing the role of basic digital assistant. The story that unfolds is both the play we're watching and the novel Ellery is writing and like all great horror stories, things may not be quite what they seem. It turns out that reality is just a habit. HAUNT ME is a surreal, compassionate, and theatrical immersion in a world that is full of surprises where memory and identity and technology and art and mothers and daughters all collide. Sometimes the scariest story of all is your own life.

James Still's plays have been widely produced throughout the U.S., Canada, Europe, Australia, South Africa, China and Japan. He is a four-time Pulitzer Prize nominee, and five-time Emmy nominee for his work in television. Recognitions include the Otis Guernsey New Voices Award from the William Inge Festival, the Todd McNerney New Play Prize from Piccolo Spoleto, the Indiana Authors Award for Drama, and the American Alliance for Theatre & Education Distinguished Play Award. His work has been developed and workshopped at Sundance, the New Harmony Project, Seven Devils, Eugene O'Neill Playwrights Conference, Colorado New Play Summit, the Lark, Launch Pad at UC-Santa Barbara, Telluride Playwright's Festival, New Visions/New Voices, and Fresh Ink in Minneapolis. He is an elected member of both The National Theatre Conference and the College of Fellows of the American Theatre. James grew up in a tiny town in Kansas and proudly calls Los Angeles home.

THE FINALISTS

NETTA & RU Montgomery, Alabama, 1955. Ruby, a sensual hoodoo practitioner, has lost her magic since her mother's death. When her devout, socially ambitious play-sister Netta gets engaged, Netta's piety clashes with Ruby's root work and tests their bond. A murder brings a mysterious stranger to town, and as the bus boycott ignites, Ruby and Netta find themselves caught between personal transformation and the urgency of the Civil Rights Movement.

Lisa Langford is a Cleveland-based playwright. Her play RASTUS AND HATTIE (Cleveland Public Theatre) earned a Joyce Award. Additional works include HOW BLOOD GO (Congo Square, Chicago), BREAKFAST AT THE BOOKSTORE (Karamu House, Cleveland), DEAR GOD (Different Strokes, Asheville), and TEDDY BEAR MOUNTAIN (Cleveland Playhouse), a children's play about grief. Her young adult play SANKOFA, which explores the importance of studying history, will premiere at Playhouse Square in February 2026.

THE HENRY CLYDE CANNING MURDER HOUSE Years after Henry Canning is convicted for the murder of sixteen women, his now-grown children Elise and Harry live very different lives. Elise has moved on but not away, staying on the infamous family property and running it as an archery school. Harry, on the other hand, has made his living off any true crime podcast and documentary opportunity he can find to exploit his father. But when Harry returns home with dreams of converting it into a murder house tourist attraction, both siblings are forced to confront their own buried secrets in order to escape their father's long-reaching shadow.

Christian Missonak is a NYC-based playwright originally from Chicago, where he was a graduate of Columbia College and The Second City Conservatory. In 2021 Christian made his professional regional debut at Madlab Theatre Co. in Columbus, OH for his play, SHERIDAN which premiered to positive reviews. His short plays have been performed all over Chicago, New York, and have been produced as audio dramas. Other theatrical production credits include: SAVE FERRIS (Under the Gun Theatre), COOPERATIVE (Metropolitan Playhouse). Film: SOMETHING OF A MONSTER, a psychological thriller Christian co-wrote, is out now on Apple TV and Prime Video. THE HENRY CLYDE CANNING MURDER HOUSE was recently named the winner of the Vox Nova Playwright Festival and a second rounder in Austin Film Festival's Stage Play category. For more, visit www.christianmissonak.com.