Alleyway Theatre Announces T. Adamson's THE NATURAL HORSE As Recipient Of The 2022 Mazumdar New Play Award

Buffalo's Alleyway Theatre has announced the recipient of the 2022 Maxim Mazumdar New Play Award. Playwright T. Adamson will receive the annual award for his play, THE NATURAL HORSE.

“Adamson's play is clearly in line with the goals of the Mazumdar. It is uniquely theatrical, totally authentic, and wildly delightful and original,” says Artistic Director Chris J Handley. The Mazumdar Award has been given each year since 1989 in memory of Canadian actor/playwright Maxim Mazumdar, whose many contributions to the early growth of Alleyway Theatre were artistically invaluable.

In 2020, the theatre's new leadership team eliminated the entry fee, opening access to the yearly competition as part of the company's latest strategic plan. This resulted in a surge of scripts, now totaling approximately 1500 submissions each year.

Recent awardees include Deborah Yarchun's THE ALEPH COMPLEX (2020) and Bruce Walsh's BERSERKER (2019). Because of the pandemic shut-down, no Award was presented in 2021.

THE NATURAL HORSE was just this week named a finalist for the O'Neill National Playwrights Conference.

Inspired by Frank Lloyd Wright's 1954 book The Natural House, THE NATURAL HORSE is a daringly wild play about a family of ex-Soviet immigrants in suburban Wisconsin. When eldest daughter Masha brings home a feral horse named Goodboy to live under mom and dad's roof, the play explodes with strange silliness and magical beauty. An incredibly theatrical look at how we search for people and spaces to call home, THE NATURAL HORSE is a breathtakingly ambitious and subversively hilarious exploration of human connection.

“I'm so thrilled to receive the Mazumdar Award and I'm ecstatic to be able to share THE NATURAL HORSE at the Alleyway,” says Adamson. “This play is a big, wacky, heartfelt comedy that somehow blends classic Russian literature, architectural theory, and zany puppetry into a contemporary folktale about family, growing up, and building a home.”

T. ADAMSON is a Texas-raised writer and theater artist of Anglo/Mexican ancestry. T. has developed new work with Vineyard Theatre, Playwrights Horizons, Great Plains Theater Commons, Clubbed Thumb, JACK, Cutting Ball, The Mercury Store, and many others. Plays include NO NOTHING (GPTC), THE STRAIGHTS (JACK, Bay Area Playwrights Festival finalist), and USUS (Clubbed Thumb Winterworks). He is an alumnus of Fresh Ground Pepper's Playground Playgroup, Exquisite Corpse Company's Fall Writers' Lab, and Clubbed Thumb's Early Career Writers' Group. Awards include Irv Zarkower Award, Rita and Burton Goldberg Playwriting Prize, a Falco/Steinman Commission from Playwrights Horizons, and the 2022-23 Paula Vogel Playwriting Award from Vineyard Theatre. MFA: Hunter College.

THE NATURAL HORSE, directed by Robyn Lee Horn, will receive its world premiere at Alleyway Theatre October 20 – November 11, 2023. Tickets and information will be available soon at alleyway.com

The 2023 Mazumdar Award submission window will open for new, unproduced, full length plays from July 10-25, 2023. The winning play will receive a cash prize and be produced in an upcoming Alleyway mainstage season. Details and information will be available at alleyway.com.

Alleyway Theatre, Buffalo's home for new plays since 1980, is a professional theatre company and collaborative incubator for bold, visceral new theatre. Education & development programs foster the talents of emergent artists from Western New York and beyond ... embracing fearlessness, theatricality, humanity, and authenticity. The company was founded by Neal Radice, and is now led by Executive Artistic Director Chris J Handley.

Now in its 44th season, Alleyway occupies a former Greyound bus station in Buffalo's historic Theatre District. The company produces four major new works each season, in addition to special presentations throughout the year. Its education arm specializes in offering students of all ages opportunities to create new theatre, not just as performers but as playwrights and devisers.

Last fall, the company was featured on NPR's Morning Edition while producing THE MAGNOLIA BALLET by Terry Guest, a play which received the David Goldman Fund for New American Plays Award. Next on the boards is THE LIFE AND SLIMES OF Marc Summers, written by Alex Brightman and starring iconic television host Marc Summers, playing the mainstage September 7-30, 2023.

Alleyway Theatre is located at 1 Curtain Up Alley, Buffalo NY 14202 – right in the heart of Buffalo's Theatre District.

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